Dallie went kennel crazy in a large, overcrowded, and extremely stressful rescue in Guatemala. Volunteers brought her to our veterinarian and asked him to euthanize her for aggression, as she was fence fighting dogs, and lunging and hurling herself at people. Once she was out of the situation, they realized that her aggression was really severe barrier frustration and zero impulse control. Lacking the heart to euthanize a young, healthy dog, and unable to bring themselves to take her back to the group and situation they had pulled her from, they left her at the veterinary clinic and continued on with their trip to other countries.
We inherited Dallie in June, but were unable to accommodate her due to her general behhavior issues, undersocialization, inability to focus, and a lack of space in our facility for her to have her own run alone. Volunteer Marjolaine Perrault kindly boarded her at no cost to us for over a month. Then we moved her and paid to board/train with Sportdog in Guatemala City for another month.
We brought Dallie up to the rescue in early August of 2015. She had clearly missed out on both human and canine socialization and was very body-unaware and disconnected. She has been a long-term training project for us and our volunteers, but she is smart and very affectionate, too. Dallie attended several sessions of group training classes with our volunteers and graduated with honors, and she has also done extensive private training. She loves the mental stimulation and interaction of training and she now has great focus.
Dallie is about six years old now, and has matured beautifully. She sweet natured, extremely beautiful, and has a friendly, people loving nature. But she is a very physical dog and loves to body check when playing. And she plays and body checks hard! She can get over-excited and decide to play tug with your shoes or your bag, but is easily redirected. She has a very solid and extensive training base now, and much better self control. She can still be reactive with some things, but this is now limited to one “woof”, and she turns looking for her treat. We only walk her on leash unless we are in a securely fenced area without unknown people.
Dallie gets along fine with tolerant dogs who don’t get offended when she bumps into them. Weirdly, she is fine with puppies, too. She is surprisingly gentle with them, and they seem to enjoy her as well. She isn’t really very interested in other dogs after her initial intro to them.
Because she is quite rough, she should not be adopted into a family with children or elderly people, as she could easily knock them over in her exuberance. She is so fun to train, we’d love an experienced dog owning and training adopter for her. Her ideal home would be local as her adopters will need ongoing training and management support.
We have lots of video of Dallie and would be happy to tell you more about her. Please contact us if you think that Dallie might fit in your life.
