Saturday, October 16, 2004

ECD and I moved another batch of boxes to her basement today. She and her daughter came over to be introduced to Annie on her turf - that went very well. Annie’s social skills have greatly improved over the past couple of years; it’s a direct attribution to my small group meeting regularly here and Annie having adjusted to random girls in her house at times. The meeting with ECD and her daughter, whom I shall call Nee here, went so well that ECD suggested that I bring Annie to her house to meet their dog, Sassy. I was nervous, but it had to happen sometime.

We entered the house with Annie on her leash. Sassy was in her crate and went ballistic at the sight of the intruder dog. Sassy is a Silky Terrier mix that weighs maybe 13 pounds (Annie is 30 lbs), but she’s only 18 months old and is a scrappy little thing. She comes by her name honestly. ECD was scared to let her out because of her frenzied barking.

ME: Let her out. They’ll need to work it out.

ECD opened the door on the crate and Sassy was a blur of white as she bolted straight towards Annie. I had Annie on a short leash right next to me when Sassy jumped on Annie and latched onto the back of Annie’s neck with her teeth. (Don’t worry, Annie’s got a lot of hair and the scruff of the neck is very fleshy - it’s hard to injure a dog on that part of their body.)

There was much snarling and growling and barking - it was loud. We let them go for about 30 seconds, then I told ECD to grab Sassy. I grabbed Annie and we separated the dogs for a couple of minutes, checking for any injuries (there were none). When they were calm, I told ECD to let Sassy go again. For a second 30 seconds the dogs battled with Sassy latched onto Annie’s scruff. After another rest period, I told ECD to let Sassy go a third time. This time Annie fought back, Sassy was unable to get to Annie’s scruff, and after a couple of seconds of growling, Sassy turned her rear end into Annie’s face.

ME: I think Annie will be the alpha dog in the house. Sassy just showed submission to her by turning like that.

See, the first couple of times, when Sassy was attacking, Annie let her because she knew she wasn’t in her own house and I was there to protect her. Sassy was protecting her turf. After the first tussles, Sassy realized that Annie was safe and more dominant and turned her rear to show her submission. Almost immediately, they started sniffing each other so ECD and I went to carry in the boxes and then we cooked and ate dinner in relative peace.

There were a few other mini-battles with the dogs. Mostly they were of the growling and teeth-baring variety - no biting, just a lot of noise. I’m sure we’ll have to go through this process a couple more times until we move into the house permanently, but I predict that they’ll be friends by Christmas.

Right now, Annie is crashed on the bed and snoring loudly. The poor old lady is tuckered out from a hard afternoon.