We're bringing my mom back up to stay in NYC with us, since she's super high risk and it seems safer to have her up with us than alone there. Everyone is on board with this decision and happy about it (road trip worries notwithstanding). We drove down and are here helping her get her things in order to make the trip. But we don't know what to do about her dog.
The original plan was easy - we drive down, get her and the dog, drive back up, with all of us taking turns driving. Her dog (who she's only had for about 6 months, a little before my father died) is a tiny chihuahua mix rescue, maybe 5 years old, who is very sweet with her but also very possessive. For some reason, the dog has decided that she hates my husband and son. She snarls when they come into the room, and tonight she bit my son on the toe (unprovoked) while we were eating dinner. It was hard enough to draw blood, but only just (I'm not defending the dog, she definitely attacked him, but since it was on a little toe, a scratch would have done the same amount of damage).
Normally the next thing we would do is bring in a trainer and work with the dog before we head back up. She's a good dog, she just has this one (terrible) issue. But there's no way we're letting a stranger into the house right now. The dog also apparently hates being in a carrier, and there's no way we're driving for two days unless she's in one. There's no one here that my mom knows who would take the dog while she's away, and since we don't know how long my mom will stay with us, boarding the dog isn't an option. But I'm not confident a zoom trainer will work for aggression issues, and I'm afraid to do any sort of training with my son unless a trainer is in the room too (he's 11 and is now understandably freaked out by the dog). It doesn't help that my mom is expecting us to tell her what to do, and I don't have it in me to tell her she might want to rehome the dog if she isn't willing to do the work to train her.
We're here for at least another week, maybe a week and a half, before heading back north. We need some sort of solution.
I'm pretty confident I understand the problem, and what our non-COVID options would be. So I'm not looking for answers that involve putting my foot down and telling my mom _____. I'm posting this to learn what practical solutions we have to fix the problem and still follow the original plan of all of us getting to NYC, including the dog, with no one getting hurt. Thanks. |
Video
Web
Image
Music
BlogU
