LORELAI
Lorelai on Couch
I acquired Lorelai at the end of February 2007. Spencer had been increasingly friendly toward other dogs and playful. He would often try to play with the cats to no avail. It was very pathetic. I thought that Spencer would like another dog to play with. I don’t remember when or how I first discovered the breed of dog that looks like giant beagles called treeing walker coonhounds. I know it was sometime in 2006. I do remember instantly wanting one when I discovered them. So I looked far and wide for a rescue treeing walker coonhound. I found Lorelai in Fallston, Maryland, just outside of Baltimore. Spencer and I traveled to Fallston and met Lorelai at the kennel where she was being kept. She and Spencer were indifferent to each other, but there was no animosity. So I took her home with me.
Lorelai Face
About a month after settling in, Lorelai became very aggressive toward Spencer and would attack him whenever she saw him. It got to the point where Spencer was afraid to come downstairs if Lorelai was around or afraid to eat if he could see Lorelai. More than a few times Spencer and Lorelai had to visit the vet to get skin staples to close fight wounds. During one particularly bad fight, Lorelai actually bit Mike on the ankle leaving a bad bite wound which didn’t stop bleeding for about a week (of course he didn’t tell me this until after the fact). After about four months of trying different approaches, I finally turned to a shock collar. Thankfully, Lorelai reacted well and quickly to shock collar training. Within two weeks she had stopped attacking Spencer. They now co-exist peacefully and actually seem to like each other.
I have read many descriptions of hound dogs, and they are often described as clown dogs. Lorelai fits this to a “T”. She if very playful and amusing. She lopes about and chases the cats (playfully) and most of the time is so adorable. So does, of course, have her faults. She cannot, under any circumstances, be let off leash outside unless it is a securely fenced area. The houndiness of her makes her run and run and run and not look back. I was putting her in the car one evening from the back yard fence (a distance of literally five to ten feet) and I didn’t use a leash. Instead of getting in the open car door, she took off and ran free. (She looks so happy running free). She ran all night. Someone called me the next morning and told me they found my dog, and I retrieved her. One time when she escaped and ran free all night, the next morning the city bus garage (for the school buses) called me and told me she was on one of their buses. The guy opened the garage and went on the bus to clean it, and there she was, sleeping on one of the seats. Silly hound dog.
Upsidedown Houndiness
Mike’s Reflections
Lorelai. On our second or third date Katherine asked if i would like to take the dogs for a walk with her. Sure, why not? Stupid me. We drove out to the mountain, put the dogs on a leash that joined them together and let them run free. This worked like a champ until Lorelai got free. Some time later, I’m thinking it was about 3 hours after we first arrived at the mountain, we saw her running along the side of a pond, 30 feet below us. Getting tired of the ordeal I decided to jump down the side of the mountain, through a thorn bush, to chase after (and catch) her. First of several painful Lorelai encounters 