Cooper is a 4-5 year old doberman mix. His owners found him wandering in the woods while they were hiking. He followed them all day and eventually right to their car. These people tried to no avail to find his owners for weeks thinking he might have been lost. No one ever came forward so they decided to adopt him. In the beginning (The honeymoon period I call it) Cooper was a perfect gentleman and easy to love. A month later his owners problems began to surface. Cooper developed a horrible case of separation anxiety, and has become extremely over protective of them and their backyard. They have grown to love him but, realized after he had chewed through a wall, broke several windows and bit their next door neighbor that they wouldn't be able to keep him unless his behavior could be corrected.
I met Cooper and my first impression of him was that he is a real people dog and actually very sensitive. He loves verbal praise and looks up at you with looks like a smile when you speak to him. When I took him for a walk he completely ignored every dog we saw and watched me intently as we walked. I believe Cooper has been over socialized with humans and is highly dependent on them. He treats his home as his den and his family as pack members he needs to protect. I think that since he so easily connected with me that I won't have much trouble figuring out what makes him tick. I will use my normal procedure for rehabilitating him for his separation anxiety for now. His family and I will manage his territorial behavior for a few weeks until I get to know Cooper better. Then I will carefully stage people coming into the the backyard and start the process of teaching him that it isn't his job to protect, but to follow his owners direction. He is very lucky to have new owners that will bear this out until it is resolved!!!