HEY ALL! Long time no update.
It's been a tough year. BUT I finally had a chance to sit down and talk about it.
So what happened to Eris?
Eris ended up getting assessed by several trainers and we were kind of looking down the barrel of possible euthanasia. However, I was able to get in touch with the folks who did her initial training. To call them "lifesavers" is understating it, because their intervention is why she's alive and well.
Without getting into a year's worth of nitty gritty, she went to them Spring of 2025 and they kept her for months running her through myriad behavioral tests. At first they couldn't recreate what I was seeing, but about a month later, it started to show.
What ended up setting it off was when they transitioned her from living in their boarding runs to living in their house. The presence of the cats in the house was causing her to lose her mind. She was on edge, shaking, trying to chase them, just unable to sleep or settle. They tried all sorts of combinations -- with dogs, without dogs, with cats, without cats, in the house, in the office. The common denominator was that if she was around small "prey-like" animals, she went into a completely manic state of mind. They said, "No wonder she was getting worse! She was basically in a heightened state of arousal 24/7 in your house with 2 cats and 1 little dog, and that's enough to drive anyone insane." If you took her away from the little animals that run around, she was fine.
But that wasn't all. We still have the 'biting' issue, where she lunges at people/kids/joggers/other dogs, etc when they run by or move quickly. They do a lot of bitework at their facility, so they suited up and put her through a bunch of situations to see if they could trigger certain responses. What they wanted to determine is if she would resort to biting, because that in itself was our biggest concern, as we have little kids that run around by our house and if she got outside, she would go after them -- that was a big nope for me and why I didn't feel safe keeping her.
What they determined was that, yes, unfortunately, even in normal scenarios like at the park and playing ball, if someone runs by her, she will run up and "bite" them. Now, it's not hard AT ALL, its just a tiny little nip, just a "TAG I got you!" but it's 60 lbs at 15-20 mph of force smashing into her target and putting teeth on them, whether it's a kid, another dog, etc. Which by law, is still a 'bite' and I could be held liable.
They said it's clear there is absolutely NO aggression in her. She's as sweet as can be, unfortunately what it all boiled down to is essentially dog OCD. If she is around anything that arouses her (which is anything that moves quickly or is small), she fixates on it. She also seems to have some problems communicating with other dogs. Despite being raised around 2 very social dogs, she never picked up on social cues. She doesnt react to them in ways the other dogs want, she pushes boundaries, she doesnt give cues to them, it's bizarre. This has resulted in a number of fights where she nips at other dogs in the back of the neck or pushes/shoves them to the point the other dogs got sick of it. They would correct her and give her body language she just wasn't getting, and her constant bugging would eventually result in the other dog(s) correcting her harshly, and then she would in turn defend herself and it escalates into a fight. I saw the same issue at my house with my dogs, where my dogs would give correct after correction, and she never once understood it.
They said they 100% do not think she needs to be euthanized, but she's a tough case that is only going to succeed if she's placed in a home that understands she is essentially a special needs dog. We sort of jokingly said she's basically a dog with OCD and autism, but honestly that's a pretty apt description.
They said she's wicked smart and exceptionally well trained. They said typically when a dog comes back to them a year after training, it's the owners who have slacked, but they said she undoubtedly came back even better than she left. We put the work in, and aside from her mental condition, she's a "bomb proof" obedient dog. The problem is, all these little things trigger her brain into a manic disaster. What was causing the shaking, the erratic behavior, and the outbursts of "aggression" is that she KNEW not to act on her drive and was fighting it. She knew she wasn't supposed to chase the cats or put Ellie in her mouth, but she was fighting demons in her head 24/7. As soon as you removed her from the stimuli that were driving her mad, she became a perfect dog. She was so smart, she wanted to do right, but her brain wasn't playing fair.
So what did we do? Well, the trainers said they'd look for a home, but if nothing came up, they'd be happy to keep her. They knew how to handle her issues and make her happy and keep her safe, but they also really wanted her to have a family of her own, because she's a big needy baby who deserves her own family.
Well as luck would have it, months later they found someone! She's now living her best life on a farm with huge property, horses, no kids, and even a cattledog buddy she can roughhouse with. She doesn't have to go to parks or do dog sports or anything that could expose her to triggers b/c she has so much space and activity on the farm. She's spoilt rotten and very happy, and there have been no recurrences of issues.
Ultimately, we learned that she was just not a good combination of breeding. When the trainers found out who her breeder was they kinda cringed because of the history they knew, but that also contributed to why they were so eager to help.
So that's how things ended. She's a good girl, she just was never going to succeed in my household. She needed to be removed from the stimuli that were triggering her in order for her to have a hope at rehabilitating the bad behaviors. As soon as she was in an environment that suited her better, she started to heal. It's comforting to know we did nothing wrong and in fact did absolutely everything humanly possible to make it work, but it just wasn't going to. Until Eris, I had never met a dog in which the "must be only dog" "no cats" "no small dogs" "no children" kind of thing turned out to be true, but I guess every now and then, there is actually a case in which it is. They said she'd likely never be a normal dog, but in the right situation, she can find a happy normalcy that works for her. They've worked with thousands of dogs and hundreds of Doberman, and were very clear this this is *not* typical of the breed, and *not* anything I did wrong.
Eris has been out of my life for about 9-ish months now, and for the longest time, I couldn't even bear to look at a photo without crying. I thought I could never have another Doberman, because it just hurt like hell. But in the last month or so, something in my mindset started to change. The trauma of what happened still lingers in my mind, but everyone assures me that Eris was an outlier. Her behavior was not normal for any well-bred Doberman, so I believe them.
I decided to log back in today because last night I dreamt about her again. But instead of it being a nightmare or a tragedy as it has been for the last year or more, I dreamt I was holding her in my arms as a puppy again, happy and peaceful. I know it was her because of how she looked at me. When I woke up, I thought she was still there. It felt so real. So, I just wanted to get on here and give some closure to this story. I think in some way, I was avoiding it, because it was the last bit of her I hadn't let go of, but the dream felt like a message that said it's okay.
I miss her so much, but I'm so glad she's alive and bringing joy to someone else. So yeah I guess... that's kinda it! That's the end of my chapter in her life. I hope she goes on to many more.
Thanks to everyone who was there for me, supported me, and followed along. And here's hoping to a bright future. Maybe there will be another dobie in my future if I'm lucky. <3
