Neva and My Sanity

Please keep in mind as you read this article that I love my Neva. She is a passionate hunting dog and really wants nothing more than to please those that she loves. She lives every day to the fullest, is an awesome trail dog, and a wonderful cuddlebug. But, to no fault of her own, Neva has slowly driven me insane for over a year. Absolutely I-N-S-A-N-E……. Until recently.

Neva came to me as a foster dog through Louisville Weimaraner Rescue. She had been jumping out of 2 story glass windows and had been running around with a shattered kneecap for a few months. One lucky evening, a rural Kentucky shelter volunteer found her owner tying her to the side of the shelter after hours. She was taken in, destroyed a few shelter volunteer homes, a car, a few crates, a few walls, a few more windows, and finally found herself with LWR, a repaired kneecap, and on her way to my house.

While most Weimaraners that come into fostercare really only need a good schedule, plenty of exercise, and rules, Neva quickly proved to be the exception. Itʼs a good thing I like challenging dogs!

Her separation anxiety was the most extreme I had ever seen. She was climbing 10 foot fences and appearing at my front door. She couldnʼt be trusted in a crate, out of a crate, and literally would go ballistic with anxiety and fear when left for a few minutes–even with constant and consistant training and reinforcement! There would be times that I would come home after 20 minutes or 2 hours to find her standing in a puddle of saliva, urine, and blood from trying to chew her way out. If I was extra lucky she would of redecorated with all of it AND added feces for an extra fun cleaning bonus.

Her daily routine consisted of several hours of free running and romping with an entire gang of Weims and other dogs in the morning, crate time, training time, dinner, more running, lounging, then crate time for bed. We rarely deviated from this schedule, but nothing was working! I also started to notice that Neva was having these phases of hyperactivity where she couldnʼt focus and was very compulsive (especially seen in day to day routine and training). I would ask her to wait until I opened the back of the car for her to “kennel up” but there was absolutely no waiting- she would literally slam her body repeatedly into the car before I could get a good hold of her and make her stop until I could get the door open. She was also all over the map with apologetic behaviors, and in the other extreme, aggressive and territorial behaviors.

I had several talks with dog trainers, my vet, and other Weim enthusiasts, but no one could really offer any suggestions, so Neva and I kept chugging away…for better or worse…

…The rest of this story will be posted soon; stay tuned!

Go to Part 2