Dog Tails from the Daycare

Some names changed to protect the guilty.

When I would arrive at the daycare in the mornings, the first thing I did was look at the list of attendees for the day. I would be overjoyed to see some dogs, like Sonny and Shelley, who rarely came in for daycare, but were a pleasure to be around.

Then there were the "other" dogs. Let's call them Apple and Seven - two dogs from the same household. Apple was some sort of retriever/herding dog mix and was as hyper as any dog. He liked to tear around the playroom at speeds up to 1,000 mph. This, of course, riled up all the other dogs, and before I knew it I had 10 dogs going non-linear. Apple also liked to play rough, and some dogs just don't appreciate that.

Apple also liked to bully new or shy dogs. He would sneak up behind his target, bite it's tail and skitter away. Little bastard. But Apple didn't have to worry about getting the beat-down from other dogs, because he had Seven to protect him.

Seven was a DOMINANT female Chow mix. This dog was so dominant she would lift her leg to pee. I kid you not. Seven was obedient with humans, but often felt in charge of the other dogs.

After the dogs' morning potty walks, we would load them one-by-one in to the playrooms. We had already let several dogs into a playroom when it was Seven's turn. She immediately went on the offensive with a sweet Collie named Barkley. She was put in time out (i.e. crated) for the next hour, and when she came back into the playroom she was fine, thank heaven.

But from that day on, the human room monitor had to be inside the room while the dogs were let in, which made it difficult, in that we needed an extra person to herd the dogs from the crate room to the playroom andthrough the playroom door.

If it was my business to run, Seven would have been banned from daycare right then and there. There are other peoples' dogs that we were charged with protecting, and ONE aggressive incident should be enough for banishment.

Apple and Seven were such a bad combo that we would take turns with which one of us would have to be in the playroom with them. You could guarantee a harrowing morning with them around.