This adorable goofball follows me most mornings while walking my dog. The following me is not the issue, he is a mischievous jerk. There are a number of homes on our walk that have multiple unsecured dogs. They want to fight with him and he tries to play. He also walks in the road crossing whenever he feels like it.
But the worst issue is last week we saw there were chickens in a yard, and he went after them. I do not think he killed one, but I saw feathers flying for sure.
his story
I have named him Astro Jr, as he is the pup of one of my friend’s son’s dog. Someone in the neighborhood outside my (I have to walk through their neighborhood to get out of mine) adopted him. The owner never kept him in their house, or even yard. Astro jr has allegations of cat killings against him. The owner’s solution was to remove Astro jr’s collar and disavow ever having owned him. So he lives in the area of his old home, but currently has no owner.
There are a number of loose cats on our walk and he has never laid them any attention. Not saying that absolves him of the allegations.
Tl;dr he has no owner, but lives near my neighborhood. Animal control has been unable to catch him, so they stopped trying and ignore calls regarding him.
The last couple days I have tried to put a harness on him, he ran from that. Then I almost got a leash on him lasso style, again he ran.
I have tried squirting him with a water bottle, shooing him.
I am worried someone is going to assume he is mine and retaliate against me and my dog. Or he is going to hurt another animal, or he himself get hurt.
My dog on our walk. She is recovering from knee surgery.
My tactic in this scenario is to throw a bunch of food on the ground in the direction of the dog. But that may not work long term for you since the dog may see you and think ‘food!’
The road that is the problem is a several mile long completely straight, and flat road. So it may hold him up temporarily he can see us and Will catch up. Also there is a neighborhood before we turn onto this road. He goes into it many mornings, then catches up to us 10-15 minutes or so later.
I think the food Will just reinforce following. However over time it may help me get him leashed.
Maybe the food might make him trust you more and then you can leash him?
This is how you end up adopting a strange dog by accident, but yes. Feed him a few times and you’ll become his friend.
Yeah, the last thing I need to do is adopt this big goofball. Plus we have a house full of cats.