Just like the title says. But this is kind of a special case (okay sure I imagine everyone says that but just bear with me) so I thought I’d ask around first to see if anyone has any ideas. I’m a bit at a loss on how to go about finding someone that can specialize in a case like my dog.
Let me give you some background here. I got this dog six years ago from the shelter. No idea what his past is like. He’s not very friendly, but he’s certainly not aggressive. Just has people he likes (me) and then everyone else is a Suspicious Person. I’m sure you know the type. Overall a pretty good dog and his few behavioral issues haven’t been that big of a problem. He’s terrible on a leash, but he doesn’t need to be leash walked, because I live out in the country and he’s got plenty of land to run around on and do what he wants.
He does bark at people, and normally this wouldn’t be an issue with how spread out everything is here, but the way my house is situated it’s within eyeshot of my neighbor. We’ve both got acres of land, but our houses were built to one side of that land, right at the spot where the property line is. I moved to the country for privacy - like most people, I imagine - and figured this wouldn’t be an issue because there was a line of big pine trees that separated our yards and we couldn’t even see each other.
Then we had a nasty windstorm that damaged a couple of them and I dunno, I guess he lost his damn mind and cut all of them down.
And then put up this hideous chain link fence.
I’m not ascribing any sort of malice to it - he’s always been friendly to me. I think he just doesn’t like to put much effort into maintaining his property. His yard is always covered in dandelions, his gardens would be overgrown except last summer I watched him do the chemical equivalent of burning and salting the earth so now he’s just got scorched weeds and barren earth surrounding his house. The porch has dry rot, but it hasn’t spread to the support beams yet, so he’s ignoring it. And just… lots of other little things that just makes me feel he lives here because it’s convenient and not because he wants to.
But maybe I’m reading too much into it. I just wanted to explain why my dog didn’t become a problem until recently. It started around when the fence went up.
First it was the barking. If he saw my neighbor return home or go out into his yard, he’d want out. Then he’d stand by the fence and bark his head off. It got to the point where I’d refuse to let him out if my neighbor was outside, but I think my dog started tracking when he was or wasn’t home. Yes, that sounds crazy, I know, but I swear that was what happened. If my neighbor was home, he’d stand by the fence and bark. If he wasn’t home, he could care less. It got to the point where my neighbor noticed and asked me about it and I had to apologize. I started taking him outside on a leash when I knew my neighbor was home (which sucks because he’s terrible on a leash) but at least he knew he was being watched and stopped barking.
He started rage-pooping instead. I’m not sure what else to call it. He’d sidle up to the fence as close as he could get, shove his butthole against the chain link, and drop a turd on my neighbor’s side. And the worst part is he’d turn his head around to stare intently at the neighbor’s window while he did this.
The first time I didn’t realize what he was doing and after that I didn’t let him do it while he was on the leash, but when he was out unsupervised he would take the opportunity and then I had to go clean up my neighbor’s yard before he got home.
I think my neighbor figured out that my dog hated him and instead of being like ‘oh hahah animals can be funny like that’ and letting me manage it (because I was! I was keeping him from barking! I was cleaning up his side of the yard!), he instead started… feuding with my dog. He glared at him whenever we were in the yard. Was always friendly to me, but somehow managed to work in a snide comment about my dog into every conversation. He’d make it sound like good-natured ribbing, but I knew he meant to be insulting when he called my dog a mutt or an… ‘ornery little shit.’ And he’d look at my dog when he said this with a smug smirk on his face, as if he was watching for my dog’s reaction, or was just gloating at how the dog didn’t know he was being insulted.
But I think my dog did know. One time he did that and my dog started coughing and I swear it sounded like he was saying under his breath ‘fuck you too.’
Yes, the dog was saying that. Yes, I know how that sounds. Bear with me, okay?
So harassment of the neighbors. That’s the first issue I want to work on with any potential trainer. No more barking. No more rage-pooping. And no more swearing at people.
The next issue I want to work on is improper chewing. I’ve gotten him every texture of chew toy I could find but I just can’t get him to chew on them. I’ve got soft toys, antlers, plastic bones, rubber chews - I legit went down the toy aisle at the pet store and basically got one of every type. Yet he insists on… finding things around my house. It’s upsetting enough when your dog destroys things, right, but honestly I’m more worried he’s going to hurt himself. You see, the things he’s chewing on are dangerous.
He’s taken my box knife three times now. I had to throw it away after the first time because he cracked the plastic case. I got a metal one and he shouldn’t be able to break it, but a) I don’t want him chewing on metal and b) it’s still a knife he is putting in his mouth. He’s also made off with a kitchen knife, but he didn’t get far with that one as I was in the kitchen and had just been using it when he snatched it off the counter and tried to make a run for it. I got upset enough that he hasn’t tried to counter surf since. He’s still being an opportunist though.
For example, he knocked a candle off the kitchen table the other day. It was in a glass holder and it broke and I think he stole one of the pieces. I didn’t see him do it, but when I picked the pieces up there was a big shard conspicuously missing. I can’t imagine what happened to it, other than he stole it and has it hidden away somewhere. Really hidden. I tore the house apart trying to find it. I can’t stop worrying that he’s going to hurt himself.
Oh yeah, that’s another thing I want to work on with him. He gets over-excited when he thinks he’s going to get to ride in the car. Jumps off sofas. Slides around on the rugs. Crashes into furniture and knocks things off. That’s how the candle got broken. But I’m okay with this behavior if you need to focus on the more pressing concerns.
Which brings me to the most concerning of his recent behaviors. I’m not sure what to call this. Scavenging? Trespassing? Murder?
The fence that my neighbor put up doesn’t encircle his yard. We’re out in the country and have a lot of land, after all. It’s just there to deter my dog. You can get around it just by going far enough, but my dog has never shown any interest in being out of eyeshot in my house, so the fence works in keeping him out of my neighbor’s yard. Okay? That’s important to keep in mind.
Now, I’m normally a heavy sleeper but last month I was put on medication that changed that. I don’t think my dog has realized it yet.
Because starting a few months ago, he’s been sneaking out at night. Like. Unlocking, opening the door, and leaving. Then coming and letting himself back in. The first time it happened I almost called the police, thinking I was being broken into, but then I realized I didn’t hear my dog barking and thought maybe I’d just improperly locked the door. So I got up, checked it, and saw my dog running through the yard.
I wrote it off as a fluke. The door wasn’t properly shut and he used that to go outside on his own. So I waited for him to scratch at the door and be let back in… but instead I heard the door open and close. I heard the deadbolt slide shut. And then I heard his nails on the hardwood and the jingle of his collar tags.
I pretended to be asleep when he came back into the bedroom. He flopped down on his dog bed and went straight to sleep, but I lay there awake for a long time.
He did it again the next night. And the night after that. Somehow, my dog was opening the door and going outside when he thought I was asleep.
He also started digging holes in my yard around that time. I wasn’t sure what he was burying and now I’m too afraid to dig them up and look. Not after what happened. I’m not sure I want to know for certain.
About half a week after he started letting himself out at night he got sick. Vomiting and diarrhea. Any dog owner can laugh about dog poop because you kind of have to get over it, but every dog owner also knows that a sick dog is another story altogether. That’s a special level of horrific. So I got him an appointment with the vet as fast as I could. The vet said there was nothing to be concerned about, just that he probably ate something rotten in the yard. He gave my dog some dewormer, just in case, and said to call back if the vomiting doesn’t stop.
When we got home, my neighbor’s house was swarming with police.
Apparently his brother hadn’t been able to contact him for a few days and finally called in a wellness check. They found my neighbor somewhere on his property. He’d been dead for almost a week. After a while, an officer came over and talked to me for a little bit and I didn’t get the feeling they were searching for any kind of foul play. It was hard to tell for certain what happened because the body had been disturbed by wild animals, he said (and from reading between the lines I think there were parts of the body missing), but it seemed likely to be natural causes. Probably was out doing yard work and had a heart attack. It happened. I wanted to say that my neighbor never did yard work, but at that moment my dog started horking in the kitchen and I had to run him outside to vomit in the grass and when I got back the officer asked if everything was okay with him.
Yeah, I said, the vet checked him out. And then the officer reluctantly told me I might want to visit the vet again and really make sure everything was fine.
They found some disturbing things in my neighbor’s house. He apparently had it out for my dog. He had… taken photos of my dog while he was rage-pooping at the fence, cropped out everything but the head, and then blew that up to the size of a target and took a stack of them down to the gun range.
Like, who does that? Fucking nutjob. I’m sorry he’s dead, but also… I’m kind of glad I don’t have to deal with him anymore, now that I know that. Sorry. That probably makes me a little bit of a bad person.
Anyway. No, my dog was not poisoned. I think he just ate… rotten meat. Like.
Meat that’d been left outside for a week.
I guess it could all be a coincidence. The burying things in the backyard. My neighbor dying. My dog happening to smell a tasty body nearby and helping himself until he made himself sick.
But… there’s one more thing. And this leads me to the last thing I need help with from a professional trainer.
I need someone who can address the whispering.
He’s been doing it for months now. It started right after my neighbor died. I woke in the night, disturbed by a quiet, insistent noise coming from beside my bed. I rolled over and it stopped, but I pretended to still be asleep and it resumed after a little while. I risked opening an eye to see what was happening.
My dog was sitting in front of my bedroom mirror and whispering, over and over, “Who’s a good boy? I’m a good boy.”
He sounded so proud of himself.
I’m a little frightened of him now. When I wake up in the morning and find him watching me, waiting for my eyes to open, it’s no longer cute and endearing. It feels… sinister. Like… what happened to my neighbor? Did he really just have a heart attack in his backyard? And how is my dog talking to himself?
I hate being afraid of my dog. I flinch when he enters the room. I think he’s realized that I’m scared of him now, because he’s been acting kind of… depressed, almost. He’s not excited for treats anymore. He’s not spending much time outside, just goes out there to pee and then comes right back inside. He spends most of the day on the sofa, watching me. Sometimes he walks over to me, half-heartedly licks the back of my ankle, and then sighs really deeply and returns to the sofa.
I’ve been trying to convince myself that the whispering isn’t a problem. It’s… not normal… but he’s still my dog, right? I think that my mood is affecting him. He doesn’t sound like he’s congratulating himself in the mirror anymore. The last few nights he’s sounded more like he’s trying to reassure himself. I tried telling him he’s a good boy like nothing was wrong, but I suspect he realizes I’m faking it.
Anyway, if you have any recommendations for trainers that would be comfortable taking on this kind of problem, please let me know. This is now an urgent problem. Because someone bought my neighbor’s house. I was hoping it would all be fine and aside from the whispering, there’d be nothing to worry about with my dog.
The moving van arrived this morning. He’s been at the window all day, watching them. He’s not growling or barking. Honestly I could handle that. A dog barking or growling isn’t that weird. But that’s not what he’s doing and it’s scaring me.
He’s calmly staring at them and licking his lips. And while I was hiding around the corner, listening, I heard him quietly say to himself:
“Oh he looks delicious.”