Adopting a Shelter Dog - A Happy Ending
Have you ever thought about adopting a dog from a shelter? Read the story of Lucie the Wonder Dog’s adoption to see how one adoption turned out.
Rabi wrote this letter to the shelter where she got Lucie. It’s quite long but it is very moving. Here is the conclusion:
I wanted to write you this letter to let you know how lucie turned out, since her fate seemed so uncertain last fall. besides that, I also wanted to send you a long overdue thank you. lucie can certainly be a challenging dog, and without people who believed in her capacity to also be an extremely good dog — which she assuredly has become — I doubt I ever would have met her in the first place. sometimes when people ask me what kind of dog lucie is, I tell them simply that she’s a shelter dog. I guess the goal of any good shelter is to find homes for all its animals, so they won’t be shelter dogs anymore, but even now that lucie has (and will always have) a home with me and my family, none of us have forgotten where she came from. thank you, from both of us, for being such an important part of lucie’s success story. Read more…
And here are some more of Lucie’s pictures:
presenting: lucie the winter wonder dog!
lucie is always listening to the call of the wild.
lucie can’t go anywhere without people stopping us to ask:
what kind of dog is that?
My dog Shellie is a shelter dog too. I guess you can tell that I think shelter dogs are wonderful! Tell me about your experiences with adopting a shelter dog.
More About Dogs:- Finding Your Dog I previously wrote about how to choose the right dog breed for you. Once you have decided on a...
- 8 Things To Consider When Adopting a Shelter Dog Here is an excellent article by Animal Control Officer Roger Matthews. I have adopted shelter dogs, and I can...
- Do Dogs Choose Their Owners? I read somewhere that dogs choose their owners. This struck me as impossible, yet somehow true at the same...
- Humane Society Volunteer You have to be a special kind of person to volunteer in a humane society shelter. Sometimes I think...
- Mixed Breed Dog Wins Online Show A cute little mixed-breed dog (dachshund and cocker) named Tillie has just won the Dog Show USA online dog show. Tillie...
Subscribe in a
August 6th, 2005 at 1:19 am
Mine is and isn’t at the same time. I’ve actually seen him being born and grow, as his mother is the Laika I talked about in another comment. 6 months later he got adopted by a couple, but they were expecting a baby, and when they started not caring about the dog because, well, it was time for the baby to be born, Vulcain started getting himself “noticed” by eating furniture and “breaking things”. Result of it all, instead of bringing him back to my BF’s mother (which they had told them they *could* do), they dropped him at the local shelter, whose people fortunately called about him. That’s when we decided to take him in; he’s never been as joyous as when hewas taken out of the shelter. I’m not sure of what these people did to him, but since then he’s been having serious separation anxiety (I can’t even go out to check the mail without him whining).
Apart of this, he’s a real lovey boy, and we didn’t have much problems with the furniture-chewing and “breaking everything”–all he needed was *some* attention, and now that he has it, he’s just lovely. Still a little nervous and never remaining in one place, he’s only over 1 year old after all, but really kind. Once he’s sniffed a person, he’ll lick her hands and be all playful. I can’t say I’ve been very talented at training him, I’m very goofy when it comes to this (plus the only classes here are at the very shelter, so it’s always tense to bring him there), but playing with him and making him know from the start what he can and can’t do has worked so far.
He’s the first dog I own, though, so I can’t really compare. I just know he’s lovely.
August 6th, 2005 at 12:51 pm
as I write this, lucie is sniffing about at my feet (I think she’s looking for some more of the cheerios I was sharing with her earlier). now that she’s been my dog for almost two years, it’s easy to forget just how astounding her progress really has been since she left the shelter. her behavior is so “normal” (you know, for a dog!) and her demeanor so generally sweet that I’m sure no one would ever guess how many people DIDN’T think she was worth taking care of.
… of course, since she is so freaky-looking, she is still the star of the dog park!
August 6th, 2005 at 8:59 pm
Shelley has really bloomed since I took her out of the shelter too. She used to be so scared and shy. Now she is more frisky, happy, and sometimes mischievous, like a “normal” dog.
I’m not big on formal training either. Like Yzabel said, I let her know what she can and can’t do, and that seems to work fine.
Rabi, nice to hear that Lucie is doing well!