About Viva

Viva is a lively, ultrasweet and super bright/intelligent German Shepard/Greyhound (we think?) mix! We've had her since she was approximately 1.5-2 years- which was about 2.5 years ago. We adopted her from a shelter, brought her home to be with our older medium sized dog, and noticed she immediately had some aggressive tendencies towards him (bullying/instigating, immediately establishing dominance, jumping on him). We called the shelter to say we noticed some aggressive tendencies, and we were told if she was returned this would be the third time she'd been returned (for the same reason), they then disclosed she has cage aggression, and she would be immediately put on the euthanize-list, so we kept her, of course. So we've had her for the last 2.5 years, she has lived outside in our spacious backyard with our other dog, and 95% of the time there's no aggressive conflict between them. She's ultra sweet when she's given attention, stimulation, she is EXTREMELY smart and motivated by praise, food, and love. With people she's very submissive. Because she has cage aggression (BTW 'cage aggression' is defined as 'A dog who's excited or aroused by something but is held back from approaching it can become aggressive, particularly toward the person or thing holding her back.') - we never took her to any places to be socialized with other dogs, she's had her own domain on our property, kept in her 1/3 acre backyard with an invisible fence. We tried 4 months ago having a friend's spayed female dog (20 pounds, cocker spaniel mix) over to see how Viva would do with another dog, and unfortunately she displayed very aggressive, passionate behavior (wanting to lunge at the dog, barking voraciously, etc.) We kept her restrained in order to protect the other dog. She is brilliant intellectually -- in the last year we've worked with a trainer and she's learned how to sit down, lay down, have her food placed in her bowl, patiently wait, and only release at the call of her name 'Viva!' and a hand signal, she's learned to heel and walk beside us and pace with us without a lead, we've built agility training routes in our backyard and she LOVES getting to work or 'have a job.' Both of our dogs sleep outside in the lower patio area of our home, and she 'keeps watch' - she'll sometimes bark at things in the woods (possums, raccoons, etc.) and keep the 'dangers of the world' at bay -- but sometimes this energy is disruptive, so she's also kennel-trained and knows her kennel is her 'safe space' and room to catch some R&R. We'll have the fan going beside the kennel at night to create some white noise from any 'unusual' night time activities outside, and she'll sleep soundly through the night in her kennel. So she's kennel trained, knows the command 'In your crate!' and she'll go and lay down and rest. When she's stimulated (getting to 'work' for her food, following commands, working her 'concentration muscles') and has plenty of interaction, she is bright, brilliant, submissive, and incredibly sweet. She's always so happy with humans, her only 'dark side' is when it comes to other dogs -- if she doesn't get that play and stimulation and structure, that excessive energy can result in picking on our older dog and her looking for ways to break out of the yard and invisible fence and take off down the street for a 'walkabout.' Unfortunately, with our schedules and life we are just not able to give her the consistent level of attention and structure she needs to really thrive, and she beat up on our older dog recently and we are proactively seeking a better living environment for her. We think the ideal home would be without another dog, with a secure fenced in yard, a place where she can be top dog, be interacted with daily and be an engaged and included 'member of the pack', get to work with someone on agility tasks (she loves getting to work on the leash in the backyard - even if it's just for 5 minutes) so she can be loved and appreciated for the gem that she is. We always say she should have been a Police Dog because she is brilliant at training together - she's more than open to learning new commands and training, even as a 3.5 year old dog. She is bright, highly motivated, incredible responsive, and an absolute sweetheart and lover with people. She's been great with kids 4 years old and up- all kisses, tail wags-- we've never had someone with an infant / under 4 years around her, but our concern is more around that tendency with cage aggression and that if another dog was in her area and there were somehow children in the mix/ in between, that there would be the possibility of collateral aggression. If you are interested - we're based in Charleston, South Carolina, please contact us immediately! We're happy to give you her Kong crate, toys, everything you need to get her set up and transitioned. Thank you!

Charleston County
Charleston, South Carolina