MAISIE

Maisie an attractive German shepherd bitch has been somewhat of a challenge.  It is rare that a dog having undergone the MBF re-homing process is returned back into our care. This however was the case with Maisie, not once but twice. Maisie’s re-homing has been long and tricky.

It was not unexpected that this would be a difficult one as our initial fact finding and look into her history showed that she was very aggressive toward young children, this of course precluded many of those who enquired about taking her on.  For although behaviour modification and training where undertaken with regard to this trait it is a given that MBF would not attempt to re-home her where young children would be present as any relapse could of course result in disaster.

Maisie was eventually placed with a couple that did not have children. However they did own a small Yorkshire terrier.  During the training and re-homing period she integrated very smoothly with the couple and their other dog.  After a fortnight with her family, although not witnessed it seemed Maisie had attacked the other dog resulting in a trip to the vet and the terrier being treated for shock. It transpired that the new owners had not followed advice given to avoid many of the hot spots that would cause potential competition and conflict between the dogs. It appears that Maisie had up to the point of the incident in question been very tolerant of the smaller dogs assertive behaviour.

Maisie came back into our care, a second re-homing took place, again a couple without children but who owned a dog, a very submissive bitch. Maisie got on famously with her new family for quite sometime, until the other bitch was given a bath the change to the dogs scent brought about an aggressive reaction from Maisie, this was worked through and things were fine until the other dog was caught out in very heavy rain, this again being a catalyst for an aggressive response from Maisie. It was decided that she should return, this seemed very sad, but a happy ending was waiting as the owners of Elderberry Kennels who do such a good job looking after our rescue dogs had missed Maisie so much that they wanted to give her a permanent home as part of their family. I am glad to report that this has worked out very well and she is living the life of riley with her old but new folks.

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