Madera

I love our dog. She's amazing, beautiful, has tons of energy and is ready to go on an adventure in a moment's notice. She enjoys hanging out in our yard and watching the world go by.

But, there is something that we haven't been able to get her to stop doing...barking. She loves to respond back to other dogs in the neighborhood when they are barking. She likes to bark at the cows across the field, especially the small ones that look like her. She lets us know when someone is walking, biking, or running by. But she just stares at the garbage truck and doesn't make a sound. We have a neighbor who goes on walks multiple times a day. If Maddy is out there she will bark at her every time. Our neighbor is really nice and talks to Maddy the whole time she is walking by, saying how sweet Maddy is and how beautiful. Cyclists going by either ignore her or when they realize that she's not going after them, they comment on how cute she is. The mailman loves her and leaves bones in the mailbox for her and always calls her "sweetheart".

Yesterday, the man running by didn't feel that same feeling for Maddy. It must have been his first time running by our house. He came running up on the road close to our house and Maddy sounded the alarm. She'd been resting on the porch behind the rocking chairs, but as soon as she saw him, she scrambled up to be at attention at the edge of her fence. All the while barking. I had come to the front door to see what she was barking at again. The guy ran as fast as he could to the other side of the road and picked up the pace to get beyond our house. I felt terrible. So much so, that I yelled after him, "it's okay, she's in an electric fence." I don't think he cared, he was still working off the adrenaline from having a dog start barking at him out of the blue.

Times like that, I seriously consider getting one of those collars that when your dog misbehaves, you press a button on your handheld device it lets out a beep and if it still isn't paying attention you can shock the dog. It's along the same lines as the electric fence, but you actually cause it to happen to your dog when they misbehave. It seems so cruel...and I don't know if I could do that to Maddy. We've tried telling her "Quiet" and spraying her w/ a water bottle, making her come inside, trying to distract her...but once she's focused on something she doesn't pay any attention to us. If she keeps scaring random people like the runner, we might have to do it though, because yesterday I felt like Maddy was incredibly unfeeling towards the runner. He looked so terrified! And I felt like I was being party to cruelty of a stranger.