Teaching an old dog new tricks
BF and I recently rescued a dog. She is part pit and part traveling salesman from what I can tell. I'll post a pic and you all can give me your best guess. Also, I'm guessing she's around 5 years old. My BF's daughter saw her dropped from a car on July 4th, and we agreed to take her in. We named her Liberty.
Liberty is a very sweet dog even though she is a bit aggressive toward our Bella, the beautiful bulldog. They are working on their relationship and doing a pretty good job of it. We expected to have a few disagreements since they are both female, and I know from experience that sometimes there's just not room in the house for 2 women.
My problem with Libby (Liberty), is her manners when it comes to living inside. Whomever owned her before, must have had no rules at all in place for her. We don't allow Bella to get on the sofa or the bed. She has a very comfy pillow that she spends her time on, and we got Libby one just like it. Nor do we allow Bella to nose through the trash or drink from the toilet. Libby, will jump on the sofa as soon as your back is turned, jump into the bed with you most mornings, drag the trash all over the house if she is left unattended for more than a few minutes, and thinks that the toilet is her only water bowl.
We have scolded her for all of these behaviors more times than I can count, and while she will be "cowed" down for a little while, it doesn't deter her for very long and she is repeating the bad behavior again and getting scolded again. We tried putting pennies in an aluminum can and shaking them when we saw her thinking about one of these behaviors, but again, it didn't work for long. BF even spanked her for getting into the trash, and that worked for about 2 days until the next time I walked into the kitchen and there was garbage strewn from one end to the other.
Please help...what can we do? I don't want to take her to the humane society because I'm afraid that she will be put down because of her breed, but I can't have her continuing to behave in this manner. I am especially concerned that she is going to teach Bella her bad habits.
Liberty is a very sweet dog even though she is a bit aggressive toward our Bella, the beautiful bulldog. They are working on their relationship and doing a pretty good job of it. We expected to have a few disagreements since they are both female, and I know from experience that sometimes there's just not room in the house for 2 women.
My problem with Libby (Liberty), is her manners when it comes to living inside. Whomever owned her before, must have had no rules at all in place for her. We don't allow Bella to get on the sofa or the bed. She has a very comfy pillow that she spends her time on, and we got Libby one just like it. Nor do we allow Bella to nose through the trash or drink from the toilet. Libby, will jump on the sofa as soon as your back is turned, jump into the bed with you most mornings, drag the trash all over the house if she is left unattended for more than a few minutes, and thinks that the toilet is her only water bowl.
We have scolded her for all of these behaviors more times than I can count, and while she will be "cowed" down for a little while, it doesn't deter her for very long and she is repeating the bad behavior again and getting scolded again. We tried putting pennies in an aluminum can and shaking them when we saw her thinking about one of these behaviors, but again, it didn't work for long. BF even spanked her for getting into the trash, and that worked for about 2 days until the next time I walked into the kitchen and there was garbage strewn from one end to the other.
Please help...what can we do? I don't want to take her to the humane society because I'm afraid that she will be put down because of her breed, but I can't have her continuing to behave in this manner. I am especially concerned that she is going to teach Bella her bad habits.
