13/02/2021
A brilliant post-
His *eyes* grabbed our hearts, and suddenly he was ours.
Buddy was adopted into our family at six months of age, from a foster family who’d found him- in a car wash- in a box- along with four other puppies. Their eyes weren’t yet open.
His human foster mom had taken a pen and written ‘smart enough to be a service dog’ on every single paper that came with him. I guess she believed he had promise.
When he transitioned from their house to ours, though, we found that he’d cower at the sight of strangers, bark and run backwards at the sight of new objects, fixate on things in the sky, and pant and drool when he was afraid, which was... often.
He hadn’t ‘been abused’. He’d been bottle fed around the clock, cleaned, weened, cared for, and loved.
We’d had big dreams. Our family of six was going to take him hiking, traveling, kayaking, camping, to outdoor markets, and out for PupCups. It was going to be *awesome*.
He was the sweetest, most gentle dog.
At the time of his adoption, I’d trained over 2,000 dogs. I believe(d) in the power of love, behavioral science, force-free training, and time.
We played, loved, taught, rested, exercised, conditioned, shaped, clicked, fed, read, studied, consulted, planned, introduced, and executed.
He remained terrified.
The interactions between puppies, their mama dog, and sibling puppies are critical to a puppy’s development, followed closely by the need for socialization during the first 16 weeks. He had none of those.
He was very content being ours. He loved our home, our yard, his people, and time at our isolated cabin. Any deviation, though, anything added, any disruption, anything outside of his little *box* was... disastrous.
He just couldn’t handle the outside world.
After some significant grieving- and I’m not being dramatic- we decided to just make our beloved Buddy’s world *smaller*.
Our family still hiked, traveled, and kayaked,
but he stayed home-
and loved it.
He wasn’t what we’d originally *dreamed* of having, but his unique, strange little self became so dear to us. His missing building blocks *weren’t* fixed by confidence building exercises, brain games, training plans, or carefully executed social encounters.
Most dogs benefit from those- but he didn’t- and after 3 years of trying, we chose to change our *minds* about him instead of trying to change *him*. We were proud of the safe haven we’d created for him, and saw it as our gift to him. Not every dog needs to go *along*.
Buddy was a homebody.
I’m not saying people shouldn’t try all that we tried, but I will share that we all breathed a huge sigh of relief when we finally stopped *working* so hard and just gave ourselves permission to simply enjoy who he was- at home- quirks and all.
Sometimes we just need to extend grace to ourselves, and grace to those around us.
We were never sorry we adopted him. We feel the opposite… grateful. Some broken things just can’t be *fixed*, and sometimes when we’re running around looking for the *solution* we need to just pause and realize that the solution is simply to *love*.
God is gracious. On the last day of Buddy’s life, I found myself looking back with some deep regrets, lamenting over the fact that I had helped *fix* so many ‘other people’s dogs’, but that I couldn’t *fix* my own.
But then I heard the whisper...
“I didn’t ask you to fix him. I only asked you to love him.”
And we did, indeed.
Originally published in the Bledsonian Banner/
Deb Mileur/ www.outathedoghouse.com
Professional Dog Training in Chattanooga, TN (and surrounding areas).
