Home › Forums › In The Words of a Dog ›
Two Broken Girls
- This topic has 1 reply, 2 voices, and was last updated 10 years ago by Justin Palmer.
-
AuthorPosts
-
-
January 7, 2015 #46791AnonymousInactive
I’m an Oklahoma girl, that much my mom knows for sure. I’d been through three shelters before she walked into the no-kill facility in Chicago where I had been brought a few days earlier. I was in a room, staring blankly into the corner curled into a ball ignoring everything: toys, noises, and people like my mom.
It was just as well, mom walked past me the first time through. But, she returned on a second walk through. After three staff members bribed me with treats (I was terrified to go through doors), I found myself in a larger open space where mom was waiting. I hid under a table and tucked into a corner. Mom waited. Something about her told me that we were both scared. Mom had lost her best friend, a 12 year old rescue named Spooky on Valentine’s Day six months earlier and her heart was still broken. I had been mistreated, feared people, had dog bite wounds so deep mom wasn’t sure they would heal properly. We both had hurts deep inside our hearts that made reaching out very frightening. She wasn’t sure she could love that much again, I wasn’t sure I could trust anyone.
But, she had a treat in her hand and I love food. So I sneaked out from under the table and got adopted that day. But the journey wasn’t what mom thought. At Thanksgiving of that year, mom took me home to spend the holidays with my new extended family. They told her she had gotten in over her head. I was nothing like what they had seen before, cowering, shaking, nervous. And then my fear of other dogs crept in and I began reacting. “Take her back,” I heard these new people advise my mom.
But, mom couldn’t. She wouldn’t. She struggled to love me, her heart was still so broken and sad. She found a trainer who specialized in fear-based aggression. She spent hours and lots of money working to teach me how to trust. We did doggie boot camp where I learned to look to my mom before I reacted. And my aggression abated and shrunk. We did agility classes where I learned to be close to other dogs and build my confidence. I jumped so high and so well, that mom nicknamed me the ninja.
When I returned to my extended family in the spring, they commented on what a different dog I was. No one told mom to send me back to a shelter.
I’m not perfect. Mom knows it will take time before I can be around other dogs in the house. So for now I’m an only child. Mom will tell you that while she probably wouldn’t have done it had she known all my traumas and issues, she will tell you that I’ve changed her. When Spooky died she found out how much love he had created in her heart. It was huge. But, it was me and all my challenges that rescued mom. I pulled her outside her grief and those issues of mine forced her back into the community of dog people where she learned how to train a dog with my background (which we don’t talk about anymore).
We were both broken girls when we met in 2012, but love rescued us. Love transformed me into the kind of dog who likes back rubs before I get out of bed in the morning, hedgehog toys that squeak (I’m on my third one), and above all, yummy treats. I smile now when I wake up in the morning. And mom does, too. Love glued our broken hearts back together.
-
January 7, 2015 #46798Justin PalmerKeymaster
Jennifer, this is SO beautiful, we are in tears! We will be posting this on our facebook page today!
-
-
AuthorPosts
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.