Saturday, January 10, 2015

Dogs are so wonderful

It's hard to believe that just a couple of years ago Mojo and George were the worst of enemies.  They fought whenever they could get close enough.  Living with that is terrible so we started working on this in several ways.  First we would sit with the dogs on our laps and whenever they looked away from each other or sat quietly with no tension we would give them a treat and praise.  Next we walked them together everywhere we could.  Then, and I think this was a big part of the success, we isolated the instigator which almost always Mojo.  We put him in a room where he could see us but there was a gate so he couldn't get out.  When George was isolated it had to be behind a door because Mojo would go up to the gate and attach George so it was Mojo who had to be behind the gate most of the time.  It took a little over a year of this and things seemed to be getting better, but the big transition came, and we were lucky this way, when we came to our home in Florida which was still pretty neutral territory.  They had spent the winter before here in Florida  as the battling duo, but this time the change brought about a complete truce.  As you can see they sleep together, they play, with Mojo usually being the initiator. 
 PEACE REIGNS.