Dog Rehabilitation News

Denzil the American Bulldog is coming on in leaps and bounds.  He hasn't demonstrated any aggressive behaviour towards people or other dogs for a few weeks now.  We held our breaths when a suicidal Bengal cat rubbed himself up Denzil's face as he came out of the compound, but the good lad showed that he was a gentleman and just had a good sniff of the indifferent cat.  The real problem with Denzil has been calming him down when we first put a lead on him, as he gets extremely over-excited when it's time for a walk.  Anne's shrieking voice telling him to 'leave it' has the desired effect, and like a naughty child he's good as gold for the rest of the walk.  Occasionally he decides he'd like to take the lead off you and walk himself, or have a good old game of 'tug-o-war', but a gentle prompt is all that's usually needed.

He went a walk through the village for the first time today, and ignored builders, lawnmowers, sheep, a couple of barking dogs, and some passers by, although a cockerel the other side of the hedge made him jump (he probably thought it was Anne telling him off again!).  When he's fully confident with the village, then we'll take him further out of his comfort zone and take him into the town.

Belle the Doberman was rehomed, although not successfully, and was back in rehab after a couple of days.  Against our advice, she was taken straight out the same day to a busy beach, and predictably she was very difficult to control.  She is a lovely bitch but highly energetic and still behaving like a puppy.  She had an extremely traumatic time as a young puppy, being baited by terriers, so we're not in too much of a rush to make her grow up.  She has low self-confidence and feels easily threatened and intimidated when out.  She needs to build a rapport with a new owner and feel safe and secure with them before being taken to busy public places, but we're doing a lot more rehab work with her anyway to help her on her way.  She's going out everyday now to busy public places, but we're keeping her visits to 'little and often' so that the experiences are manageable for her.

Yet again some dog behaviourists are charging people for advice that we wouldn't agree with, often over the telephone.  A lot of terminology and text book solutions by somebody who doesn't know the dog are no replacement for the advice provided by experienced and competent people who work with the dogs day in and day out, 365 days a year.  Dog behaviourists, counsellors and trainers have their place in the canine world, and some of them may spend some time with the dog and give sensible advice, but we would urge anybody who has adopted a dog from Snowdonia Animal Sanctuary to make the sanctuary their first port of call if they're experiencing problems.

Most of the dogs that we've had in rehab have been seen by trainers and behaviourists, and come to us complete with their mandatory muzzles, which we immediately hang up in our muzzle collection, never to be touched again.  It's worth considering the fact that we're often the last chance for those dogs with serious emotional problems and their desperate owners, as the advice given is usually to have dogs put to sleep, or to put a muzzle on them (we do neither of these).  Most rescues, the police, RSPCA, etc will have no interest in keeping challenging dogs alive (after all, there's thousands of perfectly good dogs without issues that are destroyed each year), however, we commit ourselves to helping any dog that we're able to take on, given our limited resources and finances.

We have dogs such as J.J. and Ben the GSD's who just wanted to ravage the staff on their arrival, but who are now perfectly safe for rehoming, Shadow and Cash who had been severely neglected but are now full of themselves, and Yum Yum the Dog de Bordeaux who was like a grizzly bear on a bad day, but is now waiting to give someone as much love as they can take from him.

We've just taken in a very challenging long haired white German Shepherd dog who lunged straight out of the car at a volunteer.  He's in rehab for 3 weeks because their loving and caring owners who rescued him had tried everything else, including very good but impractical advice from a dog behaviourist, so now we're going to see what we can achieve with him in less than a month.

We have nothing against good dog behaviourists who genuinely help people and their dogs, but we've also seen people spend a lot of money with no real results, so please, please contact us first if you're experiencing problems with one of our adopted dogs.