Hello world!

Foxi is a 7 year old female spayed Dachshund, looking for a Dachshund Lover to help her start a new life.

Up until now her life has been far from perfect.

For the first 5 years of her life she lived with a very elderly woman, who was not able to train or socialize Foxi at all.  In addition to lack of appropriate socialization and any kind of training, when Foxi did things her owner didn’t like she was yelled at and hit, often from behind.  When we first met Foxi she was an extremely fearful and anxious dog, spinning madly to catch her own tail the moment her stress level got too high.  It took very little to cause Foxi to begin spinning.

Then two years ago Foxi’s owner became to too frail to care for her and Foxi went into foster care, first for six months and then in another home for a little over a year.  In December 2012, Foxi’s last foster couldn’t keep her any longer because of rules imposed on dog owners by her building.  During those foster years Foxi made progress in learning to live more of what we think of as a normal life for a dog.

At that point, Viviane Arzoumanian, who had been involved with Foxi’s travels over the prior two years, decided to take Foxi to her home both to evaluate her behavior and work with her to build her confidence, teach her good manners behaviors, improve her opinion of people in general, and figure out what the best setting might be for Foxi going forward.

As a result of her early years, Foxi remains fearful of new people and growls and barks and backs away when she sees someone she doesn’t know.  She does not try to bite new people as long as no attempts are made to pet or touch her.  Foxi growls and sometimes threatens to bite when touched or handled in particular ways even by the people she loves.  She does actually bite when her warning signs of discomfort are not heeded. She does however give ample warning, freezing, growling, baring her teeth. She has not bitten or attempted to bite anyone in the three months she has been living with Viviane,  Foxi is also a mild food and sometimes a toy guarder, but again she doesn’t bite unless strongly provoked in these circumstances.

Foxi is a super smart and funny dog, she also now seeks attention from people that she’s gotten to know and like.  She loves to play fetch with stuffed toys and balls, she has learned how to file her own front nails on a board covered with sand paper.  She is learning to raise her paw on cue, so if you ask her “does your HAND hurt” she’ll lift up her paw.  Or if you say “all funny dogs raise their HANDs” she’ll lift up her paw. Foxi is a dog for whom less is more, and training games, and games of fetch feel much safer than lots of close human contact.

She is also learning to eliminate outside (especially for pooping) and is getting a bit more comfortable being outside on leash, though she does not “love” to go for a walk.  She is getting more and more comfortable playing around in the backyard, even though the weather has been so cold.

Foxi can easily be confined in a penned area, or a crate.  Because of her bite history and the circumstances in which she will bite, right now Foxi is not a dog who should be allowed to cuddle with her owners on the couch and certainly not sleep in bed.  She can often seem to seek out affection and then quickly feel overwhelmed and get growly or move away and start spinning.

Foxi is trained to use newspaper or wee-pads, and hits the mark (almost) 100% of the time for peeing and we are working on improving pooping on the pads often poops are deposited right next to the pads.