Owning a rescue dog isn’t always easy.
There, I said it.
But I’m not saying it to deter people from rescuing an animal; I’m saying it out of encouragement. Everything might not be all licks and love with a new rescue pup, or any dog for that matter, and it’s a reality that some might need to come to terms with before bringing one home.
I learned this lesson the hard way with my beloved Dutch Shepherd Shaw.
Shaw was a stray that had been brought into Animal Care and Control on Chicago’s South Side.
I had initially traveled to the facility in search of a corgi-golden retriever mix I saw online, but by the time I got there the dog was gone. I wasn’t necessarily set on adopting my future dog from Animal Control, but I decided to take a walk around.
I was looking for a medium-sized pup, one that would be small enough to live in an apartment and still feel comfortable.
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A volunteer at the facility guided me through the lines of kennels in the adoption room, with dozens of dogs all barking for my attention at once.
We walked past a kennel with a black brindled shepherd. He had been there for nearly three weeks, unclaimed and not adopted.
He was smaller than your average shepherd and seemed frightened. He was skinny, had some trust issues and experienced anxiety over being in a cage, which he was living in for all but roughly 30 minutes each day.
My boyfriend decided we would take him for a walk outside and it was there, playing fetch in the mud left from the freshly melted snow, that we knew he was the one.
I returned the next day and after a six hour ordeal I was able to adopt my new pup.
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The process happened much faster than I had anticipated, but we knew we couldn’t leave Shaw sitting in that kennel any longer than we had to.
It took time for Shaw to adjust to his new living situation. He would pace back and forth in his cage whining all night, he started growing territorial of our apartment and he flinched if you moved too quickly to pet him.
This frightened me. I started questioning if I made the right decision.
Should I have gotten a dog that I could just bring with me anywhere and everywhere? Should I have waited longer and made sure his behavioral problems could be fixed?
That word—“fixed.”
It took a few months of training and developing a routine before Shaw really started to grow comfortable and before I started to realize that he didn’t need fixing, I did.
The more I understood that, the better he got and the more in love I was.
It took a lot of trial and error and a lot of work to understand the reasoning behind his behavior – a process that can be challenging when you don’t know much about your dog’s past.
I had never had to work so hard for a relationship with my animals, but knowing that I was earning his love made our bond that much stronger.
My boyfriend and I have had Shaw for a little more than a year now.
We spend lots of time at the beach and park playing fetch, going for runs and snuggling. He plays well with other dogs, loves kids and enjoys napping on my bed and destroying toys. He’s also featured prominently on Instagram (#dogsofinstagram) and, not to brag, but his photo was retweeted by Andrew Shaw of the Chicago Blackhawks.
He’s still learning, and always will be, but you would never know Shaw was a rescue. In fact, you might say he was my rescuer (don’t judge me for the cliché line, but it’s true).
