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Originally Posted by Beamers Mom  As you probably know Reno and Clover were both puppy mill rescues.
They were both part of a puppy mill seizure the beginning of September.
Reno was literally seized from the puppy mill by animal control, taken in by LDR with the others that were seized, and taken to the vet, then brought to me for fostering. We figure he is 8-9 years old, and he had spent all his life in a kennel (probably sharing a cage with several other small dogs).
For the first few days we had to keep him penned up in the living room until we could evaluate how Beamer and Lil Bit would get on with him, and to make sure he was safe when our grandchildren came over.
To get him out of the pen we had to literally reach in, pick him up and carry him out. When we got him out of the pen permanently he kept going back in - he thought that was where he was supposed to be. We had to close the gate on the pen so he couldn't go back in there. It didn't take him long to realize that he was "free" and could go wherever he wanted in the house. He found the doggie door, went into the yard and did several laps around the yard, he looked so happy and free.
He has not been penned since. (he did have to go in a carrier when LDR took him back while we went on our vacation - and he hated that, even though it was only for the ride back to Orlando to another volunteer's home)
I think it would be traumatic for him to ever be kenneled again.
Happily he is now in his forever home and will live "free" for the rest of his life. (Clover has also been adopted) |
That is so beautiful about Reno discovering 'freedom'! My dad had a dog similar to that. He was a GSD and had been moved from house to house and pretty much left in a crate for 10 years of his life. No one paid attention to him. By the time he came to live with my dad he was full of arthritis and didn't even know how to run. A German Shepard that can't run... well my dad also had a 2 year old Golden that loved to run and the Golden taught GSD how to run. It was so beautiful to watch GSD run, even though he was slow... he looked... happy. The Golden would take laps around him but would always come back, run up on him, playfully bite him, bark, put his butt in the air, then take off again to just run, then he'd come back and repeat. The dog lived there until he died shortly after that, but for the last year or so of his life, he was happy and finally got to be a dog.