Rescue animal owners: Do you want to know their backstory?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

After our OG pack died, we picked up two pound puppies. Well technically we picked up one before the last of the OGs died but this is definitely a new pack. The question if you have a shelter animal, would you want to know their history? What happened when they had a home? Their reason for going to the pound? Why their owner didn’t claim them?

With our older one Teddy, it would be curiosity more than anything but with the younger one Pepper I want to know why she is so clingy? Why she doesn’t like people being around her while eating? Why is she afraid of men until she warms up to them? I suspect some sort of trauma but her sister (picked up on the road at the same time) didn’t have those issues.

2

It would be nice but not required.

Becky, our last dog, was about 15 months old and rescued from a dog hoarder. Overall she was pretty solid but did have a strong fear of men in boots. We adopted her out of a shelter that a friend worked at.

Our cats have mostly been either foster first and we know a lot of their limited story before us or a foundling barn kitten. We did adopt one adult cat from the pound and she was abby-normal to be generous. I wish we knew what happened to her.

3

With the exception of George, ours all showed up at our door. They were hungry, thirsty, scared and often in need of medical care. I don’t want to know how they ended up that way because I know humans were the main reason and I would just get pissed off.

4

I’m not a rescue animal owner but, If I did go that route, I would want to know the animal’s history so I could better understand my new pet. We are shaped by our experiences and our environment, and I’m thinking that it is the same for animals as well.

5

No. It would just make me angry. Worse so than with a human, because if I knew my girlfriend was a former rape victim, for example, I’d be able to comfort her, encourage her to seek therapy, and have some context for why she hesitates to get physically close to me. (This happened in my last relationship.)

6

One of our cats is a quasi-rescue. We know she had two prior owners, and the most previous to us had brought her into the home as a companion for an existing, older cat. Which was . . . a mistake, she’s a late gen Savanah, and especially when she was younger, a bit of a terror for attention. And very, Very greedy for food and control of the best spots.

We previously had no cats in the house (many snakes and lizard in their own room), and our vet was vigorously trying to rehome said cat, and my wife, who always loved Savannahs, came home with the cat and a few buckets of toys without telling me.

Which is funny, because she won’t give my wife the time of day, but loves me. Knowing her history though made it a lot easier when we shopped for our second cat: we knew it had to be another energetic breed that wouldn’t get cowed through and compete for it’s own space. Thankfully, we found a lovely Bengal on Craiglist from an owner who had to downsize as they were moving to California and paid a substantial adoption fee.

And now we have 2 cats. And many snakes still. But they don’t get to interact, much to the dismay of the cats.

7

We’ve had rescues with interesting back stories. However I think sometimes people overplay the nurture angle. A dog is destructive? Must have been abused, type of thing.

I’ve known litters of puppies that had a perfect background, yet one of the pups ended up a vicious cur while the other five grew to be perfect angels.

8

I used to rescue bird dogs that were not successful in the field trial game. I usually had a pretty good back story to pass on to their forever home. It was very helpful in a lot of ways.

9

Yes, I particularly want to know their medical history if it’s available, but any information that would help me understand what the animal has gone through would be useful. For example, if its previous owner mistreated it, that might explain why they fear human contact, and that would be something I would need to work on.

10

Our dog is a rescue, and appears to be mostly Golden Retriever with some Collie mix. We got him at age 5, he’s 13 now. I would like to know more about his background. All we know is he’s from Kentucky, grew up with his sister, and will attack any other dog that gets near him. Apparently his sister was the only dog he would tolerate being near. She was rescued/adopted out also, but we don’t know anything more about where she went. I do wish we could find that out, and arrange a meeting if feasible.

He’s great with kids, infants, adults, and loves our cat. We’ve managed to train him to ignore another dog that’s nearby, IF we are right with him and having him focus on us. He can never be off leash where he might encounter another dog.

One nice feature of his behavior is that he is also inclined to attack coyotes, of which we have many in our area. So when the Mrs. takes him for a walk at night and the coyotes howl nearby, she knows the dog will defend her. His growls and barks when he hears coyotes have thus far kept them at a distance.

Oh, the dog’s name was Storm, and his sister was named Lightning. He came to us pre-trained to respond to the command “Storm, front!” by sitting and allowing himself to be collared.

We’ve renamed him “Stormy”, as he was only confused by other attempted name changes. “Stormy” seems less white-supremacist based. And we use the “Storm, front!” command only in the privacy of our own home, when getting his leash on him. :man_shrugging:

11

I adopted a mixed-breed dog at an estimated age of 2.5 years old. In my mind, I was spinning all these wild tales and possible theories about her upbringing and why she behaved the way she did. Then I got a DNA test done on her. When I found out her two breeds, it explained nearly everything about her behavior, so I would recommend a DNA test for anyone who is curious about their pet’s behavior and don’t know exactly what breed(s) the pet is.

In my case, I did find it interesting to learn about why my dog was put up for adoption. The gist of it was that the original owner raised dogs for competition, and for some reason my dog didn’t compete well. But I will tell you, my dog has some jaw-dropping agility skills, and I think it’s cool to know that the reason my dog is so impressive is because she received some formal agility training.

12

I’d be interested to know my rescue dog’s backstory, just out of curiosity more than anything else.

We do know a fair bit - he was well cared for, not abused and came from another province. (SPCA). Border collie/Cattle dog mix. We have his vet records, and he went for regular checkups. (healthy)

The story we were given was that small toddlers entered his life, and he started to nip at them (cattle dog trait), when they were pulling his tail and trying to ride him. (which made us wonder; why not just train your children properly?) This certainly tracks, as he is quite sensitive with anyone touching or getting near his back end, particularly the base of his tail.

But this is probably not all. His records showed he went from 45 pounds to 60 pounds in the space of one year. We speculate that the new children, plus perhaps a change in ownership (breakup, death, ??) led to a situation where he was not getting regular exercise and was placated with treats. But that’s just guesswork.

After a year, we now have him back down to 47 pounds, with a combo of diet food and lots of exercise, which he loves.

It’s been fun figuring out what he knows and what commands he is familiar with. “Go to your bed” works great, especially at mealtimes. He’s never been crate trained. One funny thing we learned is that in the morning, when one of us says “good morning!” he jumps into the bed and starts kissing your face and bugging you until you get up. After a year, we have now trained him so that if we tap his nose and say “SNOOZE”, he’ll give it a rest for 10 minutes.

13

I dunno if my doggies need a backstory. I got them both at around 18 months. My boy Grady is anxious like it’s his job. I was stuck at home with him (and his patient adopted sister) for like 10 months after I got him because he would lose his mind if I left.

Assigning a backstory is more interesting. It turns out Grady is a fence jumper, which drove me to fits (I finally was able to add an extension on the top of my fence) and someone once remarked “that must be why he’s your dog now.” His canine teeth are worn away in a pattern that suggests he spent a lot of time trying to eat metal, so I’ve never caged him. He’s afraid of Every Little Noise EXCEPT gun fire! Like literally clicks and beeps and whistling wind. But when we walk past the high school during track meets he doesn’t even acknowledge the starter pistol. So I tend to assume he grew up around guns.

My girl Morgan seems to have come from Morganistan where she was reigning Empress and should be treated as such. Or at least that’s what she tells me.

It was fun getting Grady’s DNA done. He is a mutt of mutts. The only breed I can kind of see in him is Chow Chow, in his (black) coat. All the others are like “wow, really?”

14

Agreeing with this.

Most of mine have been rescues in one sense or another. I would have liked to know how one wound up with only one kidney – by the time it was diagnosed, vet couldn’t tell whether it was congenital or due to damage somewhere along the way. That cat was probably also older than the rescue place told me she was. I don’t know whether either of those things would have changed how the vet. treated her during her life, or whether the changes if any would have prolonged her life, but I still wish I knew.

And I’d like to know how more than one of them got here, and whether anyone was looking for them who I wasn’t able to find.

15

Our first pair of rescue dachshunds came from the dachshund rescue group, and they got them from the Bakersfield pound. They’d been dropped off with no hint at all of their background. The rescue said they appeared to be crate-trained, and I think they’d probably been crate-trained almost all the time. I don’t think they’d ever walked on grass. And we used to call Luc Perimeter Boy because he’d hug the walls outside. And, most fun, they appeared to have never been socialized to any other dogs. That made us so popular in our very doggy neighborhood. After about six months or so, Shanni had, like a switch turned on in her head, learned that other dogs were cool.

But, poor Luc. He was fine with any dog who was smaller than he was, and since he was a 14 lb. “tweeny,” he was smaller than a LOT of dogs. He could only make friends with big dogs if it was one-on-one, and sadly it was stressful for the other dogs, so we didn’t want to impose on people. And Luc, being a spurlauter, was LOUD. There was a guy in our condo complex who had a huge German shorthaired pointer. Luc would totally freak when he saw Orion. This went on for months. We learned to avoid each other. One day all four of us happened to be at the mail kiosk at the same time. Orion had his back to us, so I tried to sneak past, but Luc took advantage to sniff his butt. Then, Orion turned around and they went nose-to-nose…and they were fine! Then, the guy moved…like only a couple of weeks later.

Max came with history, but it didn’t help a lot. First, we could tell he was either not a pure doxie or really odd. So, we did the DNA test. The majority of his background was what we expected. Mostly, dachshund with the next largest percentage chihuahua. The other two? Shih Tsu and Pekinese. We figured the last two were the source of the long hair on his belly – a very non-dachshund trait!

16

I’m only curious about my boy’s backstory because I wonder, Who would abandon a dog this great, and why?

I mean, he’s a hundred pounds of goofy love. Gets along with every human and dog he meets (unless they’re hostile to him, in which case he just backs off). Came to us 99% house-trained (3-4 accidents in the first few weeks, then never). Chewed one slipper the first week, but nothing after that. Despite being tall enough to grab food off the counter with all four feet on the floor, has never done so. He’s got a sweet, mellow disposition and could not be easier to live with.

So maybe his original owners realized how big he was going to be (45 lbs. at four months) and decided they couldn’t afford him? Or maybe they had a whole litter like him and couldn’t find homes for all of them? I’ll never know, so I’ll always be curious.

17

Who treated my current Senior Cat so well, as a kitten, that he clearly had absolutely no concept that a human could ever intend to harm him, and was (and still is) convinced that all humans must desire to pat him – and then, after that upbringing, dumped him (and possibly other siblings) during a New York State winter and never looked back?

Or isn’t that what happened? He loves to get into cars and trucks. Did he (and possibly a sibling – someone else found a similar looking female around the same time) get into the wrong vehicle, and climb out or get put out so far from home that the humans of his first home never saw ads for him and were themselves advertising somewhere we never thought of looking?

18

I had a cat that showed up in my yard, hungry, neutered, and declawed, shortly after 9/11. He wasn’t chipped, and I took out an ad in the paper but nobody claimed him. So, he became mine until early 2018 when, around age 18, he crossed the Rainbow Bridge.

The cat I have now was adopted from a local shelter the day after her 2nd birthday in 2009. I knew that her previous owners had moved and couldn’t take her with them, and that this was actually her second surrender, the first one being when she was 7 weeks old. She was a little escape artist for quite a long time, and the first time I took her to the vet, she attacked the vet tech, presumably because she smelled and heard other animals and thought she was back at the shelter. She is sitting on my computer table watching me write this.

19

My current mob is pretty much an open book–old dog Bear was a shelter puppy, found wandering young and brought to the Salem shelter where most of his puppyhood was spent, he was moved north to the Multnomah county shelter to see if a wider adoption pool might help and he was adopted at about seven months old to a young couple who really thought a lab/husky mix could be crated for twelve hours a day in a small apartment that didn’t have any sort of enclosed yard area. They put him up on Craigslist, he bonded with Widget right off the bat and with me as well and he’s been with me for fourteen years.

The Captain is a massive long haired brown tabby who originally belonged to a young woman who had him from a small kitten but by the time he was about six months or so she could no longer manage him, he was super feisty and bored being left alone all day in an apartment so she put him up on Craigslist, I fell in love with him and brought him home where two huge grown tomcats taught him some humility and kept him exercised. He’s been with me nearly fourteen years as well. He’s diabetic now and weighs 18 lbs, he’s a chonker.

Terri I got at around six months or so, after my Maine Coon Pratchett died young. She was found wandering around an elementary school where she had spent several weeks trying to come into every classroom to play with the kids. She got surrendered to the local vet, a friend of mine, who knew I was looking for a kitten and asked if I wanted her. She’s a delicate eight pound orange long haired girl who’s been with me eleven years now.

Shoga I know a lot about–she is a heeler mix who was raised from a pup in a family with a young daughter and is immediately in love with every young kid she meets. When she was around eight months old they suddenly decided she, a 40 lb, nearly silent, incredibly intelligent, sweet, gentle and kind dog, was “too much trouble” and they rehomed her to the woman’s parents so they could get, of all things, a pitbull instead. Turned out dad was allergic to dogs so Shoga went next door to stay with my former SIL. I was following her pics on Facebook, fell in love with her and we met up near the Oregon/California border to have a meet and greet and Shoga was such a little sweetie I had to bring her home with me–she came here about a month before Widget (border collie/JRT mix) succumbed to liver cancer. She’s been with me five years.

After Widget died Shoga and Bear went along calmly enough but over time Shoga was getting depressed because she’s a very playful dog and Bear does not play. So I got her a puppy–pedigreed red Australian Cattle Dog puppy, named Okashi Inu, familiarly Kosh. I know ALL about him lol. Shoga raised him for me and they’re very great friends. He’s three now and a smart, pretty goofball.

I like knowing where my critters came from but it’s not a requirement–some things about an animal will always remain a mystery, like why Shoga is randomly scared of certain men in certain hats and she can’t get over it. She’s generally a fairly timid creature overall so I just assume she gets a notion in her head and can’t quite get over it. I can figure out why Bear has fence aggression–being picked up as a wild little puppy and raised in a chain link kennel with a bunch of other shelter dogs will do that to a critter. Most of his temperament quirks are just his own though, I don’t think they have much of anything to do with his upbringing.

20

You trained him to be an alarm clock? Most people would have trained him to be a watch dog.