We have been volunteering at the shelter for a while now and have gotten into the VIP program where people are assigned with one dog to walk so the dogs can have a little stability in their lives.
Our last VIP dog that we were given about a month or two ago was Grizzly. We don't know why he came in originally. Only nine months old and already unwanted.
He was a pretty dog. His adoption form said he was a German Shepherd Boxer mix. He had the build of a boxer and the fur of a shepherd. His hair was longer than a German Shepherd's and without the black saddle. Floppy ears and almond eyes, a wavy flag tail, a soft grayish muzzle and whiskers that tickled your hand when you fed him a piece of cheese.
On the very first walk we took him on he didn't do anything to endear him to us. The opposite actually. He didn't care about our petting, and though he ate the treats that we gave him he wasn't particularly thrilled about them. He was also terrible at walking on a leash. He pulled the whole walk and really hurt our hands.
This was before we were assigned to him so we weren't planning to walk him again. But then he was given to us as our VIP dog and so we took him out again. This time in a no-pull harness.
The second walk we took him on was the same as the first: where we were basically being ignored and dragged along. The harness helped a lot but he was a strong dog was set on going faster.
Everything went fine until we came across a garbage truck. Then he freaked out. Twisting and trying to chew through the leash. Wouldn't even eat the treats we gave him. He frantically pulled us back to his kennel.
Next time we took him out we brought him to the auditorium to play instead of walking. That's when we saw his fun puppy side. He loved to grab a toy and be chased around a table. He would run circles with the toy then stop for a drink of water, pick his toy up again and restart the game, then slow and flop down beneath the table for a rest.
He was still terrible on a leash though. We had been told how to train a dog to walk next to you or at least stop pulling but we didn't have any success with him until Jen (the shelter's dog trainer) came along with us and showed us how to do it properly. It involved giving him many treats very often. That technique helped a lot, but we found that it was easiest to walk him after taking him to the outdoor run and letting him get some of the puppy energy that had been confined to his three by six foot cage, out before any leash walk training.
We had so much success. No pulling at all on some walks. We took him out for fun and loose leash training 4 or 5 times a week for about an hour each day.
Grizzly knew a few tricks: sit, down, roll, play dead, paw (left and right), wait and take it. He was really good at that last one. You could hold a treat out on your palm at his level and tell him to wait to take it. He would wait however long you chose then when you said "Take it!" he would eat the hotdog. When we told him to roll over he would go over onto his back and wriggle around.
There was a large pile of mulch outside the building and once (only once) he found great fun in rolling around in it. He went up to the top and wriggled down on his back, burrowing into the mulch with his nose like a pig rooting around for truffles. But next time we took him over he didn't even glance at it. He also loved doing the same thing in wet grass.
Grizzly liked snuggling. He would walk over to you and flop down on your lap. Leaning against you trying to get you to touch him as much as possible. It always reminded me of a video I saw once of a baby elephant doing the exact same thing for the same reason. He sometimes got a little nippy if we petted him too crazily, but if we just stroked him then he would stay for a minute or two before going off to find his toy again and invite us to a game of tag.
He got adopted. Then was returned only a few days later for favoring the wife not the husband! Crazy reason for getting rid of a dog but if someone thinks like that I don't want them to have one.
We kept taking him out. Playing with him and training him.
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| This was the post on the shelter's Facebook page on the day that Grizzly got adopted for the second time. Sasha was also adopted that weekend and she was retuned a couple of days later too even though in her evaluation she got all ones (the lower the score the easier the dog). Hers was the best score anyone can remember. Absolutely no problems with her. Sweetest dog in the shelter. |
A few weeks later he got adopted again. This time he was returned two days later. They said he didn't get along with some kids that came over. That he was growling and snapping at them.
We think that it really wasn't fair to him to give so little of a chance to adapt to living outside of the shelter. On his adoption paper it said that he wasn't allowed to go to a house with any kids under 16 so they should have known to let him get settled in the house before bringing kids over.
He got along great with Anna and I. Both of us are well under 16 and he never once gave us reason to feel the least bit nervous of him. I feel like it must have been the kids fault. Maybe they were going up and petting him when he didn't want to be touched.
We saw him in the kennel but since he wasn't back on the walking list we couldn't take him out. Two days later we go back expecting to be back with our VIP Grizzly and he’s gone. One of the other volunteers said that he had just been put down!
Jen is on vacation right now and she wasn't there to argue Dr Finocchio out of it. Apparently she is the one to keep him from putting down dogs for such minor missteps like this. Finocchio isn't always liked by some of the dogs and Griz didn't like him. Finocchio felt the same for Grizzly which I suppose only made him more inclined to put him down.
I am writing this because when most pets die they leave behind people who cannot function properly for weeks afterwards. But no one is heartbroken because Grizzly is gone, and though we will remember him very fondly and now in a bittersweet way, he won't be missed for the rest of someone's life as a dog should be, no one will stay awake all night thinking of him, he was never given the chance he deserved.
He spent a good part of his 11 months life in a kennel and when he got out into a strange, new and doubtlessly unnerving place he was scared by some children and growled to warn them away, telling them he wanted to be left alone. He didn't bite. Didn't attack anyone. He was scared and surrounded by people he didn't know. Was what he did really so unforgivable that he should have to die for it?
This is for Grizzly, because he didn't deserve the life he got and doesn't deserve being forgotten.
He should have been able to run and play with other dogs until he can go on no longer, He should have gone for long walks off-leash with his human and slept in their bed at night. He should have been able to have someone love him as much as he would have loved them. Instead he just got cages. One or two hours out of every twenty four spent outside on a short leash. He didn't know what he was missing but I think that that makes it even sadder.
He has crossed ‘the rainbow bridge’ as Finocchio likes to say.
There are two videos of Grizzly on the RIPSCA Facebook page.
Here is a link to the video page. One of them is titled "Grizzly's in heaven" the other I think is "Spring is here and its time to get out and be physical" you will have to click see more to see this one. I am not sure about the second one being him because our computer won't play it for some reason.
Beneath those two are some videos of Oreo. He was our VIP dog before Griz. He got adopted and is now living happily with his family.
By Claire
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