My neglected foster dog Fruit Bat - yes, she is a German Shepherd! - has had an incredible physical glow-up. She needs your support for the next phase of her journey...professional training to work on her extreme fear reactivity, which is a result of being left to fend for herself in a backyard for six years. Read about her story and support if you can!

Stellaluna the Fruit Bat was surrendered to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Animal Care and Control in Charlotte, North Carolina on December 28, 2025. I brought her home to foster a few days later. The first picture is what she looked liked when she arrived at the shelter; the last pictures are after 4 months of healthy food, medicated baths, and love.

Watch this 90-second video clip of her progress: Fruit Bat 3-month update

Although her physical progress has been amazing, Fruit Bat still needs help with her behavior in order to be responsibly adopted out to her future forever home. From the little I know about her background, she was kept in a backyard with very limited socialization to animals or humans. She has had 6 years of teaching herself that if she is scary enough, whatever is scaring her will go away. If you know German Shepherds, you can imagine how extreme and scary her fear reactivity is... The shelter staff were worried that she would quickly come back on bite quarantine, but they let me give her a chance. So thankful they did. She has been safe with me and has shown all the typical lovable shepherd traits with me: loyal, goofy, sweet, and cuddly. But she is still very fearful of all new humans, sudden/fast movements (more so by men), dogs, cats, trash cans, light posts, leaves falling in the woods, unexpected smells….

A training company close to us in North Carolina (The Perfect Pup dog training company) has offered a heavily discounted behavioral modification board and train program to work on her insecurity and fear-based reactivity. The trainers will help her learn how to reassess all of her triggers and make different decisions about how to react to them. As her foster, I truly believe this training is necessary to get her to an adoptable state and I owe it to her to see the training through. Otherwise I am setting her up for failure. Once we see some improvement in her behavior, I know that she is going to make her future adopter incredibly happy.

The total cost for 4-6 weeks (length depends on her progress) is $2240. They have plenty of experience with undersocialized/control-freak shepherds and have met Fruit Bat for an initial evaluation. It will require some hard work from Fruit Bat, but you only need to look at these pictures to see that she is a fighter! I’ll visit be able to visit at least once a week for a few hours to be involved in the training process, and I will resume fostering her afterwards until we find her forever home. Hoping that we will then find her a forever home in North Carolina so that the adopters can continue a relationship with the trainers if needed.

She is starting her board and train in the second week of May.

Please consider supporting her training costs. If you’re interested in supporting in other ways, she also has an Amazon Wish List with some of the items she will need during her board and train, and afterwards.

She’s on Instagram if you want to see more photos and videos, @greenwaygoobers. Follow us on instagram to watch her training progress!

here is her website profile with the animal shelter I’m fostering her through: Stellaluna the Fruit Bat