Here's a brief update on sweet Carmella

Carmella was an angelic dog--house trained, polite, obedient--but she did not like my other big dogs. She was soooo excited to have people who loved her and took good care of her that all she wanted to do was bask in our attention and be loved...and not share that love with anyone else. She had passed all of her temperament tests with flying colors...but she was really territorial over the space around the people who took care of her when it came to other giant dogs.

I can imagine a lot of reasons why this might have happened. She had been bred nearly to death--the vet who spayed her said her uterus was horribly scarred from so many puppies. It's possible that she had been beaten up by other Danes during mating, and that she'd had bad experiences with them. She was also recovering from surgery, and often when dogs are hurting they get edgy about other dogs being near them.

For whatever reason, she wasn't tolerating the resident dogs at our house. While that's something we've worked on with other dogs in the past, since our dogs are old and Carmella was also old and post-surgery, we thought it safest to move her somewhere else. We will train dogs through a lot, but not if it endangers their health or our pets'.

Thankfully the rescue responsible for her acted quickly and found her a place to stay that was not only safe, but pretty darn nice. Pampered Pets in Hoover is currently taking care of her while Peace Love and Dog Paws evaluates potential homes. Last I heard, they had a very good-sounding potential adopter without other pets.

I really wish I'd gotten to see that poor, sweet old girl all the way through to her new home. In the end, I didn't do nearly what I wanted to, but I'm relieved that she'll be ok.

Fingers crossed that things will work great next time, or that if they go wrong, it will be the kind of thing that I am equipped to fix.

Carmella

Sometimes a dog gets dropped at the pound that "just can't be helped." Often it's a black dog, and often it's an old dog. It's a dog that's sick. It's a dog that has everything in the world going against it.

It usually gets euthanized as soon as it walks in the door and doesn't get thought of again.

I got one!

Carmella is an old black Dane who was used way too many times for breeding. She's only about six years old but looks like she's twelve. She has heartworms. She's thirty pounds underweight. For those who know my dogs, she should be Julie-size but she weighs less than Jackson.

She has entropian in both eyes from being so undernourished. She coughs a lot from the heartworms but she likes to play. She has pressure sores on all her joints from laying on hard surfaces.

Her personality is gorgeous.

She's about to get a whole lot better than she is.

Elvie

It's been a busy time over the holidays. We have been running around a lot, taking the first vacations we've been able to take in several years thanks to the husband's new job, which is going swimmingly.

For that reason and several others, not much new has happened with the semi-feral dog I'm watching. I paid a site visit and talked to some locals. I plan to work on him more later this month.

But of course, we can't do life without a foster dog. So we got Elvie.

She's a puppy who came into rescue after someone spotted her falling out of the back of a pickup truck and stopped on the side of the road to help her. The person driving the pickup never tried to find her again.

She could be a Dane/greyhound mix or she could just be a Dane. She's small bodied and long legged. She's clingy, but will cuddle with other dogs at times and actually leave people alone. She's very afraid of men, but will throw herself on them once she comes to trust them.

My brother in law dog sitting. Elvie is on the left with her laser eyes and Julie is on the right.

She also likes to chew on corners of wooden things, so every wooden thing in my house has its corners covered in bubble wrap and tape and she has to be crated if left alone.

She loves people and wants to go with them whenever possible. She came with me to work today and behaved very well and loved everyone who wasn't male.

She goes to her new home Sunday.

Time for an update

Howard has been in his foster-to-adopt home for a little over a week now. I got regular updates from his new mom, and it sounds like he's doing very well and she's doing a great job helping him adjust. He has a new canine companion, Kobe Ann, who's just a month younger than he is, and they love to play together.

Check out this video of the two of them taken when he went for his home visit:

Do you think he looks comfy?

He had some issues adjusting to the Dane-sized doggie door in his new home--it still frightens him and makes him flinch when something brushes against his back--but he's getting the hang of it now and went in and out on his own several times today.

Now that Howard is settled, it's time for the next challenging Dane rescue.

A few weeks ago, someone emailed me about a fawn male Dane that's been living alone at an abandoned house for a long time--several months or a year. Neighbors drop off food for him, but are, for the most part, frightened of him, just because he's huge and he barks. It took almost a month just to get an exact address on him because there wasn't really a clear point of contact for anyone who knew where he was, but finally some friends who are animal rescuers made it out to visit him yesterday.

They took this video of him:

To me, his behavior in the video looks promising. He's not barking or lunging aggressively, nor is he cowering and running. He's just cautiously hanging out in his hiding spot, paying attention to people and wondering if they brought food, but too wary to come all the way out for strangers.

I have a feeling that I could spend a few hours with him and get him to come to me, but just in case I can't, I'll be bringing some acepromazine with me. He's over an hour away so I want to be sure to get him on the first trip.

He's an older dog and was probably well cared for at one time--he's been neutered--but he's been on his own for a long time. I wonder what he'll be like.

Howard's home visit

This morning, Howard will be leaving my house to go on a home visit with one of the board officers from Peace Love & Dog Paws Rescue. If all goes well, this will be his last morning at my house.

Howard on November 16, 2012.

I can't believe how far he's come in just the two short months that he's been with us. A dog once so terrified of leashes, car rides, and walking through doorways that it required heavy sedation, a blindfold, and a team of able-bodied people just to move him, he now walks happily on a leash (though he still shies a little when he first sees it), jumps happily into the back seat for joy rides, and loves meeting new people on his walks. He's now a relatively normal almost-two-year-old puppy who loves to play and lives to be snuggled. He's a testament for the amazing resilience that so many abused dogs have, and to their ability to love people.

One of the questions that I am most often asked about doing rescue is whether it makes me sad when my foster pets go to new homes. The answer is, in short, no. The pets that I foster only go to homes that are carefully screened either by me or by a reputable rescue that I trust (and Peace Love & Dog Paws has one of the most stringent screening processes of any rescue with which I've worked). Adopters must go through a stringent application process, provide vet references (which are all checked), and agree to a home visit. They also must sign a contract that specifies how the pet will be cared for and that it will be returned to the rescue should the adopter be unable to provide that care. There have been a handful of times when foster pets have come back to me, and I've been happy to have them back. But way more often the screening process works, and what I get back are happy updates, like this one from former-foster Jimmy's new home:

Update 11.5.2012: Jimmy has been renamed Bruce (by his brother Cole) after
the big grey shark on Finding Nemo. They sleep together nightly and are BFF. :)

Another thing that helps me keep rescue in perspective is the constant influx of pleas for help for other pets in need of rescue. For every one of my foster dogs that gets placed into an adoptive home, another dog in an unstable living situation that can be rescued. Not to mention that there's also an adoptive family that I've made happier and more complete.

This morning I'm wishing Howard good luck and crossing my fingers that all will go well for him.

Howard's info sheet

As I fill out an info sheet for Howard as we prepare him to go to his home visit on Friday, I think back on how far he has come in the last couple of months.

www.peacelovedogpawsrescue.com

Howard’s information

History/background:

Howard is a stunning, tall, black Great Dane. He had a rough start. His first owner used abusive training methods that had the opposite of the intended effect. We know that some of the “training” involved repeated shocks with an electric collar and beating Howard with leashes and sticks. He also dragged him alongside his car by his leash. As a result, Howard became terrified of anything resembling a collar or a leash. He was also terrified of walking through doorways and getting into cars. He loved people and enjoyed being petted and baby talked, but if you reached for his collar or approached him with anything resembling a leash, he would either bolt or, if he wasn’t able to bolt, he’d flop down on the floor and go limp.

Howard got out of his first owner’s hands when his owner went into his vet’s office looking for a stronger shock collar because he thought the one that he had wasn’t working. A concerned vet tech talked him into relinquishing the dog to her. He lived in her home with two small  children and some cats for about six months before coming to Peace Love & Dog Paws when the Good Samaritan who rescued him realized that his emotional issues were more than she could handle. It required heavy sedation to get a collar and leash on him and get him into a car. He went straight from her house to the vet, where he was neutered, microchipped, vaccinated and had his stomach tacked. He then proved to be a handful for the staff at the clinic because the process of going in and out of his kennel, which involved being leashed and led through several doorways, terrified him. Several times he jerked his head sharply toward a person who was reaching for his collar, raising concerns that he might bite out of fear. Since getting to know him, we now understand that this jerking is due to his need to watch what hands are doing to his collar and not out of any kind of aggression, but it was very intimidating at the time due to his large size.

From the vet’s office Howard went directly to a foster home experienced at working with traumatized giant dogs. Again he had to be sedated for the walk from his kennel to the car, and he had to be blindfolded going through doorways and was carried by a team of four people. Once he got to his foster home, he belly flopped onto the ground in the driveway and refused to go anywhere, but when the foster brought her Great Dane out to meet him, he perked up and stood up to greet her, then followed her into the backyard. It took him another three hours to build up his confidence to walk from the back yard through a door into the house.

Howard then underwent a regime of desensitization and operant conditioning. We spent hours with him practicing walking through doorways, first for food rewards, then for praise. About a week into his rehabilitation, once he had mastered doorways and gotten used to his routine, we began desensitizing him to leashes and collars. We spent hours with him touching his neck while giving him treats and praise, and putting non-collar objects, like t-shirts and dish towels over his head (and our other pets’ heads and our own heads) in a special game that we invented for his benefit. Once he had grown comfortable allowing us to touch his collar, we started practicing attaching a leash to it and taking the collar on and off. Once we could attach a leash with minimal anxiety on his part, we began taking him for walks, which he enjoyed immensely, though he would try to run if a car passed him on these walks. We think this is due to him being dragged beside his first owner’s car. Once he enjoyed walks, we began practicing riding in cars and going fun places, like the pet supply store and visits to friends who had dogs for him to play with.

Howard loves to please, and he worked hard at his training regimen. Two and a half months into it, he has made improvements by huge leaps and bounds. Now that he’s not spending all his time being anxious, his sweet, goofy, outgoing personality shines. He loves meeting new people and animals when he’s out and about on his walks. He loves to run and play with people and dogs. He’s gentle but playful with cats and small dogs, though he does want to chase cats when they run from him. He loves to snuggle on the couch and lay his big old head in your lap. He hops into cars willingly, and recently decided that he liked spending time in a crate—a big turnaround from the dog terrified of walking through doorways!

Personality/Quirks/Habits:

Howard lives to cuddle and play. He gets cold easily and enjoys wearing sweaters. He is not a chewer and will keep squeaky toys for a long time without destroying them. He has only been known to be destructive once, when he threw a temper tantrum over being locked out of his foster parents’ bedroom after he began trying to climb on the bed at night. We’re still not sure if it was him or one of the resident dogs annoyed at his antics, but he paced and whined at the bedroom door a lot and someone pulled a cushion off of a chair that night.

Howard is still anxious about having his collar touched or having a leash attached. We think that this will continue to improve with time and practice. When we go to leash him, we stop to pet and praise him for a moment before attaching the leash, and this calms him down. Once he’s leashed, he’s happy to walk, and usually doesn’t pull.

Howard loves cheese, and will come running at the sound of a cheese wrapper.

Schedule:

Monday-Friday 

7:30 am wake up and go outside for potty time (about 5 min.)

8:00 am eat 3 ½ cups of food

8:15am go outside for potty time (about 15 min.)

8:30:00am put in crate

5:30pm outside for potty break and play time (about 15- 30 minutes)

6:00pm go for a walk (sometimes a leash walk on the street, sometimes a hike on trails or a run in a nearby field)

8:00pm eat 3 ½ cups of food

Outside to potty as needed

10:30pm bedtime, in bed on floor of master bedroom but has recently been sneaking up on bed

Weekends (if different)

Same, but times are often shifted later if we sleep in. Howard likes sleeping in. J

Food:

Howard has been eating Diamond Large Breed with no gastrointestinal upsets. Diamond has no corn, wheat, or soy.

Treats:

Howard’s eaten Milk Bones, raw hide treats, and bones with no problems. He loves cheese and lunch meats.

Training/Trigger Words:

Howard came into rescue knowing how to sit and shake. The signal for “sit” is an index finger pointed at the floor. He will shake any time you reach a hand to him. He knows his name and knows the word “easy” for how to behave around small animals and children.

Toys:

Howard came to rescue with a soft toy that had been his favorite. He likes to eat paper towels. Not big on fetch.

Baths:

We’ve bathed Howard several times. The first time was a challenge due to his fear of being cornered and led into small spaces. Later times we leashed him outside and used a hose. He’s tolerant of baths, but fortunately his short, glossy coat doesn’t need a lot of grooming.

Grooming:

Howard sheds a lot and it helps to keep him slicked down with a soft-bristled brush.

Fears:

Howard has a lot of fears. They include: leashes, collars, sticks, cars, loud voices, sudden movements. We believe he will continue to become less fearful the longer he is in a stable home.

Health issues: N/A 

Medications / Supplements:  N/A 

Vaccinations / Vet Care:

Deerfoot Animal Clinic 205-661-9630 (files under rescue and adoptable’s name). A copy of the records will be provided upon adoption.

Flea/Tick Preventative: Currently on Advantage Plus due 1^st of each month & after baths

Heartworm Preventative: Currently on Heartguard– due the 1^st of each month for the duration of life

Training Howard

Howard's training consists of multiple daily sessions of operant conditioning with positive reinforcement that mainly focus on desensitization. On his first day, we spent about eight hours (with lots of breaks in between) working on doorways. It took something like an hour and forty five minutes for him to walk through his first doorway and come into the house.

Today, doorways are a matter of course, and Howard walks through them both of his own accord and on command with little fuss. The only time they become an issue is when he encounters a traffic jam of canines trying to pass through a doorway at once. He doesn't like to linger in passages, so he will hop over everyone else and bound ahead. He can jump over Jackson with all four feet without even coming close to touching him. Jackson is not a small dog.

Right now, Howard's main training involves practicing looking at a leash, collar, or other similar threatening object and then getting treats. David and I drape the leash or other rope-like Scary Thing over our wrist and offer a treat. Howard will only approach the Scary Thing for a very high value treat. It is not hard to find Scary Things around the house. Anything that vaguely resembles a leash or collar will do--a tiny kitten collar with a bell attached, a shoe lace, a hair tie, and a piece of ribbon are all Scary Things. We also spend time taking Scary Things--even real collars and leashes--and attaching them to other pets, buckling and unbuckling them and jingling tags while ignoring Howard and praising whomever is having their collar adjusted. Our dogs enjoy this a lot since they already like having their collars adjusted, so this is a free reward for them.

Another part of Howard's training is the "Let's Put This Thing Over Our Head" game. This game involves putting objects that are not Scary Things over the heads of various members of the household, including Howard. Objects that are not Scary Things include blankets, towels, and t-shirts, among other things. Howard is pretty good at this game.

Meanwhile, Howard's personality is emerging as an affectionate, obedient, gentleman of a dog. He loves contact with humans and other animals, and interacts politely with both. He's a good communicator, and it's pretty easy to understand him and get him to understand us now, though a lot of his language with humans is different from most dogs. (That will probably be the subject of another post.) He definitely enjoys being with people,  likes to snuggle on the couch when we call him up there, and sleeps happily on the big dog bed that we keep at the foot of our bed. He's lovely inside the house with no interest in chewing or marking. In short, he's a terrific dog that's been trained to have some very specific fears, so our job will just be to retrain those.