Chapter 17
By Leslie Gallagher
We knew Kenny needed another home. That was pretty obvious. But before we could completely call it a day with him, we felt that we had to exhaust all of our training options JUST IN CASE. If there were any way on earth that we could convince Kenny to get along with Kashmir, and convince Kashmir not to be terrified of Kenny, we had to give it a try. We desperately loved Kenny and had worked so freaking hard to get him better and walking again. He was family!! He had to help us make it work!
We called our trainer, Michael Chill who is a genius at dealing with canine aggression (among other things). Michael offered to help us give it a try but he was not hopeful, given Kenny’s long history of being unsocialized with other dogs and due to the fact that he had ostensibly been dumped at Dobie rescue for dog hostility. He felt that it was likely that we could, with a lot of work, convince Kashmir to not be afraid of Ken but that it was highly unlikely to change Kenny’s personality. And he felt that an incident like what happened with Kashmir knocking Kenny down would have happened at anytime, regardless of how careful we were. He said that as Ken got stronger and more comfortable in our home, he was bound to eventually start challenging our male dogs. Michael reminded us repeatedly how difficult it is to change an older dog’s ingrained behavior, especially one that had gone through the hell that Ken had gone through. Having said and done all that he jumped in to help us. First on the list? Get Kenny to acknowledge Kashmir. Who’d a thunk it would be so hard?
In the house, Kenny and Kashmir were obviously separated. One would be let out for a while to romp around and play and then he would be put away and the other would be let out to do the same. It was stressful and complicated as a couple of times one of us didn’t realize that Kashmir was loose and would let Kenny out and we’d both go into complete panic mode grabbing one or the other and carefully securing them into a bedroom. One very memorable day Kashmir was loose and Bryan had taken Kenny for a walk. He thought I had put Kashmir away and I thought he was putting Kenny back into the bedroom. Kenny came sauntering into the breakfast room and went after Kashmir like he’d been shot out of a cannon. To his credit Kashmir just kept backing away until he was completely cornered and we were able to pull Ken off of him. But Bryan had his headphones on and didn’t hear me screaming (I’m normally calm in a crisis but I totally freaked out thinking Kenny was going to kill the pup). I also couldn’t risk pulling hard on Kenny because of his neck injury so I’m having a total meltdown trying to CAREFULLY pull Kenny away without hurting him and making sure he didn’t sink his teeth into Kashmir. All the while waiting for my strong husband to jump in and save the day as I knew Kenny would listen to him more than me. So. Freaking. Stressful……Also filed under “Why Did I Marry This Guy” was the morning Bryan was about to go for a surf. It was pre-dawn. He went to put on Kenny’s leash but Ken thought it would be better if he hopped in bed with me. AND KASHMIR. Kashmir froze, not moving a muscle as Ken tried to get comfortable on Bryan’s pillow. I went from a sound sleep to heart palpitations in less than a second. Bryan yanked Ken off the bed, no one got hurt but sleep was finished for all of us.
