Help Us Rehabilitate Hard-to-Place Dogs

A few years ago, we sat down with two of our friends and brainstormed about a rescue organization dedicated to helping the hardest to place dogs find good families. We wanted to take extra steps to ensure the success of the adoption. It starts with the dog, but it must end with the new relationship between the dog and its new owner.

We have recently revisited this thought process with the adoption of our new dog, Kenza. Her story is a lot like other dogs that go through rescues. Bad start… Hopefully a good finish!

Kenza is a Maremma Sheepdog. She's a big, strong Livestock Guardian Dog… with one catch. She was born with deformities. She is missing a foot on one of her front legs and has serious malformation of the foot on her other front leg. It’s a little unclear what happened to her before she was brought to the rescue, but she was not socialized and by their account feral. She was scheduled to be euthanized. Lucky for her, the veterinarian she was brought to has an affiliation with the rescue she ultimately was saved by. They went above and beyond, getting her a set of prosthetics for her two front legs and placed her with a fantastic foster on a farm. They even put her through some basic obedience classes. And that is great!

The problem was that when it came down to adopting her to a family, that family had to be equipped with the knowledge and skill-set to handle that breed of dog with the poor background she had. That is a monumental task to ask of an adopting family, and in my opinion a set up for failure. So, what happened to her is what happens to a lot of dogs that need a little more “crisis” management. She got adopted and then returned when the family realized there is a lot more work that must go into this dog and it's not just going to assimilate on its own.

I could see right away she was a great dog. I could also see that she had a lot of baggage.

Resource guarding

Leash aggressive

Apprehensive around men

Didn’t like her paws or tail touched

Pulled on her leash

Stubborn

Large breed dog that is reliant on prosthetics to go for walks

Any one of these behaviors/traits on its own could discourage any potential family. But when you combine them, you get a large mountain to climb, and it takes away from the strengths and the good qualities of the dog. Kenza is an extremely intelligent dog that is great with my kids. Others were never able to see this because they were not able to first get past the hurdles.

Probably the best dog I’ve ever owned was a breed of dog most people would pass on nearly 100% of the time. She was a Bandog. A “scary” Pit Bull/Mastiff mix. She had a hard start in life as well, but that didn’t stop her from being the most stable, obedient, loving dog we’ve ever owned. She was 1 of 2 puppies that survived when their breeder left a litter of puppies along with their mother tied to a tree in 100-degree Texas heat while they went on a 2-week vacation. Basha and her sister were the only survivors after being found next to their deceased mother and litter mates. I received a call from a person I had previously received a Bandog from and asked if I would take her too. I said absolutely and my brother and I drove down and picked her up. She lived a great life with us and made many memories.

When Basha finally passed, we waited some time before adopting Mocha a little Pit Bull mix, Logan another Pit Bull Mix, and finally foster leading to adopting Maggie a Pit Bull Mix. We lost Logan sooner than expected to an auto immune disease and much later in life Maggie to a tumor. Mocha is still with us and a healthy old lady. Before adopting them, Mocha and Logan were returned to the animal shelters after short adoption periods. Maggie alongside Basha, top my list of favorite dogs, sat in a cage by herself for a very long time before we took her home. Long story short, all these dogs were long term investments that paid off with mutual understanding, devotion, and fond memories.

So, what are we talking about then?

I don’t believe a typical rescue is equipped to handle this niche. I think it requires a specialized focus on the part of the rescue. We’ve come full circle with our original idea that these types of situations require an extra response and responsibility on behalf of the rescue and the adopting family to maximize success. These dogs need one on one real world training. This is much more than just training a dog to sit, stay, fetch, come. These dogs need total rehabilitation. It requires tearing down and rebuilding from scratch. It also requires additional support for the adopting family even after adoption as an extended family.

How do we do this?

We work with other rescue organizations and take in cases that need rehabilitation to make them not just adoptable but non-returnable. This relieves the extra cost and management stress on that rescue. We offer the service free of charge to them. Instead of volunteers we have a dedicated staff to manage the dogs onboarding and offboarding. We evaluate, train, and develop relationships with the dog, the adopting family and the rescue. That same staff will remain in contact with the family as long as needed. This process is continually evolving and not ending.

This sounds like a lot of work. How is it funded?

It’s true, this type of endeavor will require continuous resources. We manage this by boarding dogs to fund the Ruffstart program. Our facility will offer dog boarding and daycare. Through this we will be able to generate the funds needed to be self-sufficient without any further donations and maintain a program with on staff specialists. We relieve the cost of this training from the rescue and allow them to focus on rehoming the dog when it is ready.

How much do we need and what will it be used for?

We are looking to raise $50,000.00. This money will be used for the following:

Kennel enclosures

Kennel supplies

Indoor play/training facility

Outdoor play/training facility

Initial staffing requirements

Initial rent requirements

Our end goal is having a 90-pound resource guarding, leash pulling, apprehensive around men, stubborn dog, follow the lead of a 70-pound 7-year-old.

We know that there are many great causes that you can or may already donate to and appreciate all donations and considerations on your part. This may not be a cause that everyone sees necessary, and we understand and respect that, but if this is something you feel has merit and see value in donating, thank you!