A Bit Shaken

My hands are still shaking enough that I can hardly type and I have no idea what just happened.

Charlie is the neighbor's dog that they allow to run loose, and he comes to our fence and races up and down it with our dogs. I HATE it, and all the neighbors think it's a game. I don't know. Maybe it is. I'd introduce them but I'm not about to do so without both dogs under control. It's gotten to the point where both our dogs will sit at the corner of the fence- the corner facing the direction that Charlie comes from. Of course Jake and Buck both easily recall when he's not there, and Jake will recall when Charlie is across the street.

When they race the fence there's no hackles or anything. I do my best to prevent it and bring them in when I hear them/see them.

It's not too difficult until the neighbor boy comes to play with my little bro and the dog follows him and sits right outside our gate. THAT I hate. Well anyways one of the kids was idiotic enough to open the gate- when I've told them time and time again not to- when Jake was RIGHT there and Charlie was RIGHT there.

Jake got out, and I wouldn't really call it a fight. No one was hurt, the dogs were easily split up when I moved in, and Jake didn't struggle to get back towards Charlie or anything when I directed him inside. What I saw- it's kind of a blur- was basically Jake nipping at Charlie's butt. Similar to the way he does to Buck when he wants to play. I don't know. At that point Charlie would turn around and nip at him. It was almost like Jake was trying to run him off our driveway, not hurt him.

I stepped in at that point and Jake ran to the other side of the truck. Charlie had gone to see where he was and I caught Jake and easily propelled him indoors. End story, he didn't even seem to remember and was wagging his tail and being 'happy happy pet me pet me'.

I was the only one bothered, apparently, as the little boy was standing right there and just went back to talking with his friends. My parents- both dog lovers- didn't seem too concerned.

To detail some of Jake's other meetings with dogs... his typical response is to sniff a moment, then step back and bark at them. He once slipped his collar, ran over to a black lab(male), sniffed, then stepped back and barked, tail wagging. I then grabbed him and put him back on collar and leash.

I've introduced him to all three of Chels_Girl's dogs. With Kali they went face to face he'd step back and bark- almost like he was afraid- but on the second try they sniffed butts and were fine. He seemed to get the hang of it after that, and was introduced just fine to Sydney and Mylee. We had no fights or issues whatsoever during the time he was around them.

Same about the step back and bark thing with Dozah, the dog who lives across the street, and my cousin's black lab/malamute pup, as well as another puppy across the street.

We were walking to the beach once and there was a loose BC. He did fine until the dog started to approach us, then he looked at it and seemed alert. Another situation where I just wasn't going to see what would happen.

If it matters, I've been working on focus games when Charlie is outside and Jake's 'zone' for alertness when Charlie is involved has been shrinking. Um, he got loose on Charlie once before and chased him home. Charlie is the only dog he has a problem with on our walks... which suffer because Charlie is ALWAYS loose.


Sorry this is kind of blabbering on and probably doesn't make of lot of sense, but as I said I'm kind of shook up and not sure what to think.