Being Tangoed

Tango is a rescue dog who has been with us for just under a year. We don't know much about her past, just that she was a working gun dog that was kennelled and hadn't lived in a house before. We were also told that she was quite high energy and excitable...



Tango and Cosmo hit it off immediately, more importantly Tango and George became inseparable very early on and she now sleeps in his room, under his bed (although starts the night in our room!) She is pretty clean in the house, she had the odd accident early on which we ignored and now will spend in the house if we are out. It is impossible to predict when she will toilet in the house (she never does it when we are in). I think she just decides if she needs to go and we're not there...then tough, how is she to know when we will return!!! You can't blame her really. Again we just ignore it as best we can (hard to do when there is a steaming heap behind the door when you open it....)



Other than the toilet issue Tango is a delight in the house and nothing has phased her at all so we think she must have had access in the past, perhaps even just at her breeders house when she was a pup. She adores all people but does have a tendency to lick. She has two types of lick...one is relaxed and she does it just for the sake of it, but the other she used to do a lot when she first came to us. It is a stressed out lick, strangely it even sounds different to a normal lick!!! She tends to do that one at the vets too and she is much more likely to jump up when she licks in that way. She often does it to people that she doesn't know...it's quite 'needy' bless her. It does make me sad now when I see her like that. She loves attention from people though and does thrive on it.



I have to say, when out and about Tango is fantastic, she can be really calm and placid...until she sees a cat/squirrel/rabbit/sheep or another dog and then she becomes turbo charged. It's incredible. She will bark and leap off the ground from a standing start and spin around in a full circle before landing and immediately doing it again. Sometimes it is sheer adrenalin and excitement at being so close to another dog....other times it's stress at the sight of another dog running. Tango cannot deal with other dogs running. She wants them to stop and if allowed to she will make them stop. If they then try to run again...she will stop them again until they lie still (yes, she floors them). If a dog is calm (and not macho..poor Cosmo hope he's not reading) she is fabulous with them, but if they are small, macho or running...she is like a different dog. For that reason we can't let her off lead around other dogs yet. It would be hugely irresponsible. We exercise her on a harness and long line. She doesn't exactly have a huge amount of stamina or energy so she copes really well with that. If there are no other dogs close then we drop the long line or let her off.



Over the last 11 months we have worked really hard with Tango around other dogs. She has met a huge number and we have taught her that the meeting continues if she is calm but ends quickly if she isn't...so now (touch wood) she is calm(er) when meeting most dogs. We have also hired a horse arena to work with her 'issue' about running dogs. Cosmo has been the running dog bless him and we have run him ragged around her and she now knows she shouldn't launch an assault on him, that it is far better to stay with us as we have cheese.



It amazes me that she was a working girl in her past though. She has no real desire to retrieve, she just isn't interested and her recall is...well it's pretty pants to be honest. We have worked hard on it and yes, we changed her name initially,but she didn't even respond to a whistle. She does now though as we whistle feed her in true ex puppy walkers for Guide Dogs style!



Finally, it seems our hard work is starting to pay off. I am aware it could go belly up again at any point, but over the last couple of days Tango has been a star. Not only has she greeted several dogs and all at the same time...but she told a small macho male to 'bog off' when he tried to mount her, in such a ladylike and patient way today I was thrilled. (Although not too thrilled at the dogs owner who kept telling me 'noooo he only mounts other males' despite me warning her that Tango would really not appreciate being mounted as soon as I saw his body language..but that's another story!) Now...I need to trust her enough in a situation like that (where all the dogs have been known to me for years, well except for the 11 week old Lab that is), to drop the long line! I don't trust her not to go charging off to the dog in the distance that is running yet and ignore the ones that are calm and close...so it's a big ask that trust thing. Small steps. We will continue to meet and greet on the long line for a couple of weeks yet I think and then we shall see....for now, we are all thrilled at just how far she has come. When she arrived she was stressed and didn't know what was going on, now we have a chilled out princess of a dog who is learning that another dog running isn't necessarily a bad thing.

The joy of a rescue dog though and seeing them come on so much, well, that's something very special.