Then and Now: A Recap

So far, I’ve shared how I met Luci, bringing her home, transitioning her into a house dog (and more), but I haven’t talked about how Luci was in the beginning vs. how she behaves now.

In Chile, Luci was protective over my family and me pretty much from the beginning. She followed us everywhere, loved all of us, and “protected” us from the other scary dogs at night. She was friendly with us and kept to herself around others. So, it was surprising to us that she had a bit of an aggressive side when we brought her home. Not with us, but with others.

One night, maybe a week or so after we got back home from Chile, my brother and I had a few friends over (oh, the pre-COVID days!). We didn’t know how Luci was going to react, but we were surprised to see she was very timid and shy around all the new people. She wasn’t aggressive at that point, but she was clearly uncomfortable about having a few people invade her space. She gave a little snarl warning that let me know that she was uncomfortable, and I knew it was time to have our friends keep their distance. I thought she just needed a bit more time getting used to her new environment and warm up to new people and then everything would be okay.

One day a little while later, we went to meet up with my dad at the cottage, and Luci would not stop barking at him. Normally the only time she would bark prior to then is when someone knocked at the front door, and aside from that she’s a very quiet dog. But she just kept barking at my dad. We told him to just give her space and in time she’d be fine, which tended to be the case with her and new people. Well, some time later, my dad went down to pet Luci and she growled and went to bite him. We put her inside and diffused the situation, I obviously apologized to my dad, and tried to figure out what was wrong.

After some digging, I came to realize that Luci has fear aggression. We think that she was possibly abused by an older man back in Chile (since she was normally okay with women and younger men) and that may have been the source of her fear with my dad. After researching fear aggression more, I understood that there were warning signs that I should have seen to prevent that situation from happening. During “fight or flight” response, when a dog confronts something that scares them, they will either run from the situation, or decide they need to fight. Fear aggression is when a dog feels that they need to intimidate someone (or something) that they are afraid of by growling, lunging, or biting at them. You can read more about fear aggressive behaviour in dogs here.

Ever since the situation with my dad, I have been able to read her body language and can tell when she’s comfortable and when she’s uncomfortable with people. She wouldn’t go out of her way to attack anyone, but if she were to feel threated (i.e. even if a friendly giant thought she was cute and tried to pet her), she might react negatively. Because of this, we tend to remove her from the situation when she ever gives us the warning signs. This means bringing her upstairs and behind a gate when we have guests over (unless she is familiar and comfortable with them). It’s not the most ideal situation, or what I expected to be the case two years down the road after getting her, but I’m glad she’s able to give us signs and we know that there’s a reason why she behaves this way.

She is still very much a sweet and loving dog who loves a good belly rub and snuggles on the couch. And sometimes, she’s a very needy girl who wants attention, just like her mama.