Rescue volunteer log

snowbunny

snowbunny

Location
Andorra and Spain
I was hoping to bring Alex (now Dante) to our house for the time until we travel, but Shadow and Willow are struggling to relax around him, despite really good initial set-ups. The last thing I want to do is put any of them in a situation where there could be a scuffle, so have decided that, since it's not for long anyway, it's probably best for him to stay where he knows for now, even though I hate to take him back to the shelter after each walk. The great news is that he's now been put in a larger kennel with two other young dogs, after being in solitary for the last year. He had a reputation as being aggressive towards other dogs, but I've not seen any hint of that. I can only assume that he was put into a situation where he was scared when he first arrived into the shelter, and ended up in a fight because of that. But he demonstrates no barking or lunging at other dogs in the kennels next to him, nor when others approach the front of his kennel. Out on walks, he shows some normal interest in other dogs. I have had him playing with other dogs on lead, and was confident enough to let him and Squidge get together. He was a bit dumbfounded by her! :D

Here, J caught some video of him being completely uninterested by dogs barking from the other side of a fence (these two are now his kennel mates):


He was quite humpy when I first introduced him to Squidge, but being with the other two dogs in the kennel seems to have had a dramatic effect on that and the last time he and Squidge got together, he didn't try it once. To me, it looked entirely like a dog who just didn't understand how to deal with the social situation and so he fell back on humping behaviour. So it's also possible that he tried to do that to the wrong dog who took exception to it and that caused a fight.

Here is the video of their first meeting - I kept Luna on lead at first so that Dante could approach off-lead in his own time because she is a complete tank. You can see how humpy he was - in hindsight, as I have already discussed with @Aitch, I would probably have been better off taking the two of them on a walk together after the first minute or so, rather than keeping them in this enclosure where he probably felt a bit forced into social interactions he might not have been ready for.


And here are some gratuitous pictures from our last walk with him:

He loves the attention!

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snowbunny

snowbunny

Location
Andorra and Spain
I’ve not been to the shelter in a while. To be honest, I find it very hard to go there when it’s about 15 minutes each way, I spend a couple of hours there and do that twice or three times a week. It’s a lot of time for me with everything else I have to do and I’ve been feeling a bit exhausted since my trip to the UK. It feels like I am spending a lot of time but not actually achieving anything significant behaviourally. My heart lies with the idea of fostering, where I think I’ll be able to make more of a difference.

However, I am on a WhatsApp group for the volunteers so keep up to date with what goes on. This new management is just a breath of fresh air. I’ll remind you that in all the months I was at the shelter last year, the only dog who was adopted was Chi/Ginny.
Today... just today!! .... FIVE dogs were adopted!! Five!! Including the two little dark brown Chi/Pod/whatevers above, and.... MAMI!! Yay! I didn’t know she was still around, as she’s not in “our” kennels, but she has been at the other one since her pups went to Germany, and today someone gave her a home!!

I am so happy!
 
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