(All names changed for reasons that will become clear.)
A few weeks ago I saw a post on the neighborhood chat site from a pregnant single Mom, Mia. She was overwhelmed and needed some assistance. Her older daughter (11-ish YO) Jane had convinced her to get a dog but was not at all taking care of it. Mom was too tired and sick to do it, and wanted someone to take the dog until a couple of months after the baby came – just to give her a rest.
The homies and I all love having a dog about the place, but are not quite ready to commit to a full-time canine. So we really enjoy having rent-a-pups come through. I put a note out to all of them to see how they felt about taking on this longer than usual “lease.” We were all for it, so I went to visit them.
At my visit it was clear that Lulu was much skinnier than she should be. She was immediately friendly with me, and Mia remarked that’s unusual with strangers. It’s normal for me though, as I’ve spent a lot of years working with and training dogs. So I didn’t think a lot about it.
We talked a bit about what she was looking for. I understood that I would be taking the dog on the weekdays, so that Jane could have her dog home on the weekends. Jane gave her mother a heartbroken look and asked “Will this be like Spike?” The Mom told me that her brother had adopted Spike when the daughter failed to care for him.
I asked Jane to look me in the eye and said “Nobody is trying to take your dog, OK? I’m just here to help your Mom out until she gets settled in with the new baby.”
A week later (and about a month early) I got an emergency call that the baby was on the way. There is a ton of detail I would love to add here, but suffice it to say that picking her up showed me a lot of truth the owner never told me about. Like a minuscule crate the dog had clearly spent way too much time in, and no dog food anywhere in the house.
I finally got her home and settled in my space. She was so scared. She wouldn’t eat if I was in the room. Wouldn’t take a treat unless I was at least four feet away and wasn’t looking. Bolted in terror every time I moved. Hand shy, foot shy (OMG the rage!!) mats in her coat so bad they were pulling on her skin, and overall practically feral. As far as I could tell she had no English vocabulary at all. Not even “sit” which every dog I’ve ever worked with had down pat by eight weeks.
For the first few days I just tried to live in her periphery and let her CNS get used to being out of the cage. She wolfed down chow morning and night, but I had to walk away and sit down before she would touch it. After about 3-4 days she started leaving a few bites in every bowl. I lowered the feed amount a few times, but she kept leaving food until I realized – she’d been starved. She was leaving food in case the next feed didn’t come. Poor sweet puppy.
She would jump into my lap if I patted it, but not in a happy way. I would call it fawning behavior. Still, it allowed me to surreptitiously cut out the worst of the mats.
Twice Mia made appointments for Jane to come by and see her dog. Both times they no-showed. They have not wanted to take her on the weekends.
It has been about four weeks now. She is not afraid of anything I do. I can touch her feet and snout without fear. She’s had a second bath now, but still needs a full groom to get the smaller mats out.
She sleeps on my bed, near my feet but not touching. In the morning she army crawls up the bed for cuddles. A couple of days ago she took a treat from hand for the first time. She’s beginning to be playful.
She is still easily frightened. Something scared her in the back yard (big truck or train from the sound of it) and now she doesn’t want to go out anymore. We’re working through it again. She was doing really well for a while there, but at least she has learned to use the puppy pads indoors.
She’s learned several english words like come, sit, chow, treat, but also wait and gentle. One of the homies got her some buttons, and I’ve placed them around near her various activities. Chow, treat, outside, clean-up (for the puppy pads) requests that she makes (or used to). But I’m not trying to get her into that yet, she’s still in kindergarten – the buttons are high school. Just leaving them around as familiar objects and pushing them when I do things.
When one of the homies needs to talk to me they will ring the bell or knock and open the door to speak. She has learned to bark once (inform) and then let me handle it. She’s going to make a great watch dog.
Here’s the horror I’m living under though: we have no legal rights to hold onto this dog. The original agreement was for two months, and one is up. I’ve thought of a hundred strategies to keep them from taking her back, but none realistically works. And my promise to Jane haunts me.
But how can I possibly return her to a situation where she has clearly been hit, kicked, and starved? Mia put another note out on the neighborhood site with a photo of an English Bulldog. Her BF apparently is moving in with them (thank goodness – for the baby’s sake) and they need someone to take the BD until her lease is up (six months.) After that they plan to get a house with a fenced yard.
So I’m thinking we probably actually have five months. What do we do then though? Returning her would be too awful; it doesn’t bear thinking about. I do give Mia credit for reaching out for help. And I know there are a lot of people in the world who think crating and hitting dogs magically teaches them how to act. But nobody thinks they are teaching a dog when they kick one. And she was clearly foot shy.
I promise pics as soon as I can get her fully groomed. Don’t want to embarrass her! <3