- Location
- Andorra and Spain
I think it's over and done with, yes. It bears no relevance to what I do today. I don't know what happened to her, so there's no point wondering what did in terms of addressing today's behaviours. Of course it has had an impact on that behaviour, but I don't know what it was. All I can do is treat the dog in front of me. In the same way I have to with the other dogs whose (almost) entire history I do know. I'm not doing her any service by thinking, "Did this happen to cause that?". It doesn't matter. All I do is try to move forwards. As I've said elsewhere, someone taking Shadow today would assume he had been beaten by a stick. He hasn't. So what value does making those assumptions have to the dog you have today? I'd argue none.Is that part of their lives ever really over? I don't think so with Charlie. There are still certain things that must have happened in his previous life that still happen no matter what we do to positively help, yes we have reduced certain things a lot but they are always there on some level. x
There's that, too. When people ask me about where Ginny came from, I tell them she came from the protectora. Was she "rescued" by them? Well, they fed her, but that's about it! I know for sure that we saved her from dying in that place, and my heart does swell to think of what we have given her. I'm incredibly proud and grateful to have been able to have such a profound impact on her life. She probably was "rescued" to a greater extent than many. I just have this little voice niggling at me every time I go to write "my rescue dog, Ginny".And when is a rescue a rescue?
With friends, I will call her "the new one" or "the three-legged one" because I have four dogs and don't expect anyone to remember their names unless they spend a lot of time with them! But that's just descriptive - I will also say "the brown one", "the black one", and "the light one" - people often don't get the idea of "chocolate" and "yellow"