Straydog UPDATE posted SUNDAY 12/22/02 at ~7:47 p.m. CT

Pat Arnold's Daily Dog Log

SUNDAY DECEMBER 22 2002

Krissy meets Candy on leash in the park today

     Candy's going to need a new kennel mate soon (as her current kennel mate will be going to her new home Christmas morning), so we've been trying Candy with a few different potential future companions. Often two adult (or nearly adult) females will not be compatible, and although we're not sure yet, it looks like these two are not going to be kennel mates. We'll try them again tomorrow for a short period--still on leash, of course. We never take the leashes off till we're absolutely sure there won't be a fight.

     As I've said before, because of being very cautious we've never had a dog fight here at Straydog, but years ago we had the unfortunate experience of having to break up three different fights between (and among) our family dogs. As we look back on those horrible events, we wonder why it took three fights to teach us to be extremely careful handling dogs.

When they meet, dogs have to be able to sniff each other's rear ends. They do this to learn a lot about each other in addition to needing to be sure that neither is giving off the scent that comes from being afraid, because if one senses that the other is afraid, the less fearful dog will attack the fearful dog in anticipation of the fearful dog beginning a fight out of self-defense.

As you can tell from the photos, we never felt comfortable enough even to relax the leashes, but we'll try again tomorrow. These girls could possibly be friends.