They have had two-year-old Lurcher Lena for four weeks. There is no history of her previous life.
She is a delightful dog, full of character – friendly and funny, but will be a lot easier to live with when she calms down and develops some impulse-control.
She pulls terribly on lead and will generally do as she pleases. To quote her new owners, ‘she is totally unresponsive to our commands. She needs to learn some manners’. I found that she simply does as she likes despite their best efforts. She lacks self-control
Lurcher torments the cats
A major problem is she torments their cats. She obsessively looks around for them when she leaves the house; she barks and whimpers when she sees one and lunges after it.
As a Lurcher she has prey drive in her genes and this can’t just be switched off.
Lena was certainly active when I arrived! She was flying all of the sofa and vigorously shaking a rope toy. She charged around dropping a bone on the hard floor and skidded about after it. Manic!
All this was made worse because she’s having to wear a lampshade that added to the chaos as she crashed into people and furniture.
Injured on a walk
Out on a walk she had gashed her side badly on barbed wire, and whilst under anaesthetic the ve
t spayed her as well. It certainly hasn’t affected her energy levels!
I found her very responsive to a quiet voice and rewards.
A while ago I went to two whippets who similarly were on obsessive ‘cat-watch’ when they left the house. The people carefully stuck to the plan with great results (you can see the story)
Lena’s new owners know that this is going to take time and I hope are prepared to put in whatever effort it takes. I only saw them yesterday and already Lena is testing the new boundaries!
