Ex Shelter Dogs Giving Back Helping Anti Social Shelter Dogs | #germanshepherd #mastiff #kelpie

Our last Shelter Dog Day we tried something a little different. There’s been a few weeks the shelter haven’t been able to make it to the farm, they’re very busy and their priority is always saving animals plus resources aren’t always available, but when they can make it, we’ve been trialling a few different ways of best making use of the day from our end.

The shelter will turn up with a handful of wonderful staff and volunteers, who are able to exercise the dogs in the available paddocks or playground.

Behind the scenes we’ve been trialing different training strategies… boot camp style, focused training on certain issues, expanding social circles, formal assessments etc etc. Trying to work out how we (as in Luke personally) can best help some of the dogs, beyond simply offering the farm for the day as a place to run free and play outside of the kennels.

Short term training can work for some dogs. In those situations is just proof that with a little guidance, this dog can overcome whatever issues are presenting as possible barriers for adoption.

Our long termers we have here at the farm are in a different category. Short term training style techniques would not be of benefit for them.

But for a dog like Rover here, it’s of great benefit.

Hoping you all might remember Rover’s story.

He was a adopted out as a young puppy from the shelter. He then was rehomed again. And then finally surrendered a few weeks ago at the young age of one with the recommendation to be euthanised for aggression.

Dee contacted us. She felt like she’d let this guy down. Normal response for a person like Dee. Always thinking how can I or how could I have done more for this animal? Well, Dee does far greater than the average person’s share when it comes to animal welfare. Her whole life is devoted to it. Her health and everything else takes a back seat to the welfare of any animal she comes across.

So … when Dee said she needed to help this dog and she refused to accept the euthanasia request, we wanted to see how we could help.

Firstly, Luke did a formal assessment on Rover. A boot camp session over about an hour. Then some further testing with dogs. He identified that of the shelter dogs there on the day, Winnie was the best fit to give Rover a positive social experience/interaction. It went better than expected. They got along perfectly and played so well. Winnie was also a dog that was not able to be socialised with other dogs. There is a video of all of this.

But fast forward to this week. We’d been thinking about the dogs like Rover and Winnie. Dogs that had been categorised as anti social. In Rover’s case, aggressive. Knowing that with just a little training and then some positive guided socialisation they could prove that they were not those kind of dogs that they had been labelled. That actually, they want to be very social dogs. Perhaps this could not only help them finding a suitable home, but it could even benefit them by simply being able to be rehomed into home with other dogs. A social life, as opposed to a life with no other dogs.

This is a long introduction but I wanted to share our thinking.

So long story short … the exercise went INCREDIBLY!

I actually got really emotional off camera.

Why? It wasn’t just the fact that this was something big for a dog like Rover. We’re pack living people so we love seeing a dog living a social life, a dog that is social inclined that is. Most dogs are, definitely some are not. Rover is one.

But it was also emotional, this light bulb moment. This big pack of farm dogs, misfits themselves, colourful pasts, some that had lived a lot worse situations than Rover … are here together and can help a dog like Rover.

Technically, they’re all now responsive, positive, social dogs. You need that for a dog like Rover to learn that dogs aren’t threatening. But emotionally, they are different … they’re incredibly and uniquely accepting of a dog like Rover. They’ve been there, done that. They don’t care that he’s socially awkward. They want to play with him anyway and happy for him to join the pack.

Since this day, Luke and I recorded a video of us discussing the uniqueness of this situation and how it differs to our Therapy Days. I’ll post it soon.

Anyway, it was just a truly amazing experience for Rover and for us humans.

Hopefully Rover can be seen for the social dog he is. Sure, he’s still a rookie in terms of social experiences. He’s not going to do well in a home with a younger dog. Because he’s not the well experienced one yet. The pup will learn from Rover. Rover needs his own more socially experienced dog/s to be his pack. He’s also likely been homed previously with a dog that was anxious or shy or something of that category. A dog that had their own issues that were not being positively addressed. Not a good situation again for Rover. He needs to go to a home with well balanced dogs.

Rover is up for adoption. He is an incredibly sweet dog both to humans & DOGS.