Hello, and thanks for the welcome.
We got our Boerboel when she was 4 months old. She came down with Parvo 4 days after we brought her home. The breeder said they all had their shots and he hadn’t heard of any of the others getting Parvo and the one he kept was fine, so she must have gotten the Parvo at our house. The vet says Parvo has at least a 10 day incubation period, so she had to have contracted it prior to coming to our house. Regardless, we paid the $1,300 and got her all better.
Once she recovered from that, she was integrated into our yard of elderly dogs and did just fine. The vet waited until she was about 10 months old to spay so he was sure she recovered well from the parvo.
When the Boerboel turned 1 yr old she attacked the Dane. Completely out of nowhere, and for what we could see, no apparent reason. My husband was petting the Dane, and the Boer just snuck around him and lunged at the Dane and grabbed her by the neck. Ever since then, the fights are at least a couple of times a week, and they are bad fights. The Dane has been to the vet to many times for stitches, lots of stitches. These are bad bad bad fights. The Boer usually comes out with a few scrapes and that’s it.
They are not allowed near each other anymore. We have to keep them separate so we built a 22 by 20 foot pen to put one or the other in. When the Boer is in, the Dane is out.
Then we went on vacation in 2009 for a week and had my daughter and her husband and my neighbor take care of the animals. While we were gone the Boer got out of the yard and was found over a mile away. Since then, we can’t keep her in the yard, she climbs the fence as soon as we leave to go to work or the store or anything. I’m assuming it’s separation anxiety. She was tearing the stucco off the house and clawing at the windows to get in if we left her alone.
She has also started freaking out when she hears thunder, a lawn mower backfire, or any loud pop at all. Even if the wind is blowing hard, Santa Ana winds, she will freak and jump the fence.
We have that part of it better controlled as the vet has put her on some stuff called Clomicalm. It works a little but not completely. If she is in the pen in the back so the old Dane can be out, she will scream and scream like someone is hurting her for hours on end until she is let back out or we put her in the house. It’s unreal.
She has just recently snapped at our old lab mix and our old Rottie. Now, if she were to attack one of them, especially the Rottie, he wouldn’t stand a chance. He is very old, his back legs are bad, and she would hurt him bad. So now she is completely segregated alone. If she is out front, everyone else is locked in the back. If she’s in the back, they are in the front. It’s very frustrating. We are just at a loss of what to do with her. As I said, she was raised the same as everyone else, trained the same as everyone else, and loved the same as everyone else, yet she is not getting along with anyone. Being raised with them is what makes this more confusing to us as to why she’s doing these things.
With people, she’s ok. Leary at first of strangers but is ok with them coming in the yard if you are out there to tell her it’s ok. Strangers pet her, and she’s there friend for life. She is very well obedience trained, so in that department we have no problems either. And, she LOVES cats. (and no, not for dinner, literally just loves our cats) so you can see, she’s really not a bad dog, I think she has some kind of mental issue.
Sorry such a long post, but we do love this dog and are just frustrated.
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We are in Riverside California. Where are you?
