She's funny and smart. Shasta learns tricks quickly, learning to roll over, sit up pretty, high five, high ten, and dance on her back legs. She's a great snuggler, too.
With all these wonderful traits though, she also has severe fear issues, and this manifests in aggression. True aggression. It's something she helped teach me about over the past few months, and I'd never seen it first hand previously.
In the time we shared, we did agility, walks, tricks. We worked on reactivity to cats, which she had mastered and was able to hang out with our kitties with no problems. We worked on walking past strangers, which we were still doing, and we worked on just being loved. We worked on her ability to make new friends, which was still a work in progress. I also changed her diet to help with these things, boosting the tryptophan to assist her brain's serotonin production. She regularly got frozen kongs stuffed with kibble, yogurt, chamomile, banana and peanut butter. We even got a full panel of blood work done, but it turned up nothing...only showing that she's physically healthy.
She enjoyed the agility and walks. The car rides. The snuggles. She was an agility rock star. She's our puppy rocket.
This part is the hardest to write...we did all we could. Today, we say goodbye to our puppy rocket, our Shasta.
Last week, she attacked Sean. He didn't do anything out of the ordinary, and they have a good relationship. However, she bit him in the stomach and proceeded to lunge for him repeatedly after the bite. He was able to get away, but even after he shut the bedroom door behind him, she lunged for the door. She meant business. Her gaze was clear, without confusion, and her intent was without question. It's one thing if this happened out of the blue, but this wasn't her first bite. Unfortunately, it is her last.
Today, Shasta crosses the rainbow bridge. She won't have to be afraid anymore.
Shasta, I'll miss you terribly. You're a sweet, misunderstood girl, and I'm so sorry that I couldn't fix your problems. All I can do now is take away your pain. Thank you for teaching me about aggression and that not all dogs are meant to stay with us. I hope you rest peacefully, have lots of rolling, green hills to run, bunnies to chase and laps to snuggle. I love you, little girl.
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