I love Magdalena. I do. But she has gotten to a point where I don’t know what to do.
She has taken to guarding her food bowl. She won’t eat from it, she just guards it. Well, she eats sometimes, but not before guarding it for most of the evening after I feed her. I’m not sure where this is coming from or why she just won’t eat her food. That would solve the whole issue.
Anytime Major Tom or Sirocco, especially Sirocco, get within five feet of her and her food bowl, she starts whining and barking. Things got a little more heated than I like last night. Major Tom came to sit next to me while I was working on the computer. Magdalena and her food bowl are about five feet away from me. She started whining and barking, but then Major Tom started getting nasty and snarled at her. Things started to escalate from there. I quickly called them down and made sure Major Tom wasn’t going to go over to her and start something. I keep the water spray bottle handy these days.
Sirocco is afraid to move through the house because Magdalena usually snaps at him as he goes past her. Since she has decided that her main goal in life is to sleep in the space dividing the house in half so no one an get past her, Sirocco can only stay in one half of the house. If he wants to go outside to use the potty, and happens to be in the living room, he can’t get to the back door. He’ll sit there whining until I come and pick him up, then carry him past Magdalena, and set him down by the back door so he can go out. The same happens in reverse after he comes back in.
If he gets past her and back into the living room, he usually makes a beeline to the bedroom if Magdalena makes any movement at all. He’s safe in the bedroom because Magdalena doesn’t normally go in there unless one of us might have food there. Sirocco shouldn’t have to sprint through the house like a sacred rabbit any time Magdalena makes a move.
I get along with most dogs, and I get along with our three on an individual basis. One on one we have no problems. If I’m with Major Tom and Sirocco, usually no problems. Most of the time if I have Sirocco and Magdalena together, there’s no problems, as long as it isn’t around her food bowl, or her favorite toy, Gizmo. Major Tom and Magdalena usually have no problems, but they are also the ones most likely to get into a knock-down, drag-out battle over the littlest things. I’m never quite sure what will set them off. It happens rarely, but even once is more than enough for my tastes.
We are looking to rehome Magdalena. We are not going to take her to a shelter. We got her from a shelter and they were going to put her down in three days if we hadn’t adopted her. That’s not a good solution. We are looking for a good fit, preferably a home where she can be the only dog. Also, we’d like to get someone who can be active with her, maybe someone who can take her on hikes or long walks / runs. She seems to do well with the kids we’ve encountered so she’d probably do well with a family that has kids. As long as the kids don’t take away Gizmo and taunt her with him, everything should be good.
If you’ve got any suggestions on how to handle the situation, my Hordeling, leave a comment and let me know.
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Here’s a thought. It’s not based on long experience, and there’s probably 50 or so problems with it, so feel free to ignore it, but here it goes anyway.
Don’t feed Magdalena until late at night, about the time she actually eats.
We feed her at around 5:00 PM every night, when she used to eat. Now, there’s no telling what time she’ll eat. Today, she finally ate yesterday’s food about an hour and a half before it was time to feed her this evening.
Tonight we started something new. I feed the dogs around 5:00 PM like always. If they don’t eat within an hour, I take up their food bowls. They don’t get to ‘graze’ on their food all day anymore. Eventually, they’ll get the idea that they’d better eat in that timeframe, or they won’t et to eat at all.
Probably a much better idea than mine.