How All The Dogs Began
My husband and I adopted our first dog Snitter with no forethought or planning. We went to a shelter to donate old blankets and came home with a heartworm-positive dog. I had had cats for years, but we knew nothing about dogs. Nothing. Thankfully, for us and for him, Snitter was a very tolerant dog. Despite our mistakes, he was a happy dog who just wanted to spend time with people.
When Snitter passed away from degenerative myleopathy, we knew we wanted another dog, but we still weren’t sure how to choose the right dog to join our family. Sometimes, however, the dog chooses you. At an adoption event, an uncertain 7-month old dog leaned against me, and I knew he was the one. Sprocket became my four-legged soulmate. That’s not to say that life was perfect. Sprocket was fearful: strangers and noises like fireworks and thunderstorms were the worst. We probably made some of his fears worse before we realized that we were doing so. But then we found a fabulous trainer with a strong background in behavior problems. Using Behavior Adjustment Training (BAT) and other techniques, we started overcoming, or at least managing, some of Sprocket’s fears.
In the process of helping Sprocket, I learned a lot about dog training and behavior. Sadly, Sprocket was diagnosed with multicentric lymphoma and died when he was only 5-years-old. But that’s when I knew that I wanted to learn more. That I wanted to help dogs like Sprocket. That I wanted to help All The Dogs.
