Quite a few years ago, my husband and I adopted two dogs from a shelter. The boxer mix, whose name was Nomi, had been scheduled to be put down the following day because she had trust issues and was aggressive. The black lab mix, Cody, had been also been abused, but she was fearful and very submissive. She squatted the second anyone got near her. The two dogs had been side by side kennel mates and got along well, so we adopted both at the same time.
Now, I have to tell you that my husband and I had both had many dogs with different temperaments throughout the years, but Nomi really tested limits with both of us. We were used to animals that had been gently and lovingly reared. Dogs that were trusting and well behaved because we’d trained them with consistency and love.
Cody was so loving, it was sad. She just wanted someone to love her all the time, but she was always scared that she was going to be hurt. It took her a long time to trust that we wouldn’t hurt her and a “no” just seemed to crush her. We babied her something fierce to help her get her confidence back. What a love.
Nomi, well, she was a love, too, but a more difficult one.
We had to do lots of re-training with Nomi, and some of it wasn’t easy because of her trust issues. Let me go into a few of them.
First, the aggressive behaviors. Wow, she had quite a few. Not trusting humans (and I can’t blame her, she actually had a burn mark on top of her head!) my husband and I had to use different methods with her than we’d ever had to use on any other dog. We had to be extra gentle with the word “no” with her. No sudden moves AT ALL! We couldn’t go near her when she was eating (we’d always trained all of our dogs from puppies so we could literally take a bone from their mouth) or sleeping and we had to put her in another section of the house when ANYONE came over! Wow!
Not only did we need to re-train her, but we needed to re-train US!
First, we had to establish that WE were the pack leaders, not her. Again, a dicey proposition when you are dealing with an aggressive 2 year old boxer mix that has been abused. Nomi bonded just a bit better with Santos and Cody tended to come to me first so we let them pick and choose and we started training them together. Nomi with Santos and Cody with me. We figured out real quick that training separately would make it harder on everyone as they howled when they were apart. Separation anxiety big time! No sense in stressing them more than they already were, so we just trained them together. No big deal. They were happier and more attentive that way.
Being as they had issues to start with, there were certain things we didn’t press in the beginning. We kept them together, ALWAYS, we left them alone when they were sleeping and eating, and we tried to be more careful of our movements when we were close to them.
It took a few months before Nomi would accept food from our hands instead of only in her bowl. We talked constantly to both of them as they were eating and they started to accept that they could eat and not be harmed. We could tell Nomi “no” for an unacceptable behavior and she started to trust that we weren’t going to yell and hit (it was extremely obvious that she’s been beaten, she had lots of scars under her coat and because of her behavior anytime anyone extended a hand towards her) when we did so.
They started snoozing and relaxing at our feet when we watched TV or played a board game at the kitchen table. Their tails started wagging when people came into the house to visit instead of pitching a fit.
About a year and a half after we had brought them home, the lady from the shelter who had approved us for adoption came to visit. The dogs went completely wild when she walked into the house. Nomi especially. They remembered her and her loving ways with them and made it almost impossible for this woman to take a step in any direction. They demanded her attention and she gave them what they needed.
She couldn’t believe the difference in both dogs and kept saying over and over that Nomi was a totally different dog. Cody, too, because she was much more confidant, but Nomi was the one that had changed the most.
When she left, my husband and I looked at each other, I had tears and he said he had an allergy (huh!), we turned around towards the living room and sat on the couch and watched a television show. Both dogs immediately sat at our feet with their tails wagging. You could tell that they were having a wonderful day and that they were happy. These two abused dogs with beautiful healthy coats and clear eyes had finally found a home where they were happy.
Simple things can sometimes be so good.
