Tagged: “gotcha day”

Marsha! Marsha! Marsha!

Marsha! Marsha! Marsha!

Sometimes at our rescue we get to name the dogs, and it’s fun. Marsha was one of those cases. She came to us a sweet. loving playful little girl. While with us we were so happy to see how she got along with every other dog, even tolerated Charlie being mean and barking at her. Nothing seemed to phase this sweet girl As we continued to observe her pack play behavior we realized that she was one of the most well-balanced dogs we had at the rescue.

As many of you know we have a trainer at The Rescued Pup that specializes in helping people with their stressed out, or naughty dogs. One of her clients had a dog that was struggling with separation anxiety. Our trainer decided to foster Marsha to her clients for one week. This would give Marsha a break from the rescue life and give the family dog a chance to see stress free crate behavior. The hope was for Marsha to model the benefits of a crate.

The week came and went and the family took amazing care of Marsha, Marsha made new friends and learned what it felt like to be part of a loving family. The family dog learned the crate was actually an ok place to be and instead of barking and drooling he could enjoy a treat or take a nap when he was in his.

At the end of the week Marsha came back to the rescue, the foster Mom was sad, the family dog seemed stressed and Marsha was so so sad.

The agreement was that we would wait until the weekend to see how the family dog did in the crate. He reverted back to the previous behavior rather quickly. Marsha was flat out depressed for 3 days, but then she started to play with the other dogs again and she even ate a little something.

We met with the family on the phone and it was agreed that Marsha would become a part of their family. Hooray! I had the pleasure of transporting her to her new forever home. As we loaded her into the vehicle she seemed so confused and sad. It was a look we see often, and my heart felt a pang of sadness for what must be going through her mind. What had car rides meant to her in her short life? A trip to the shelter to be dumped as a “stray”. Then a long trip to the rescue, a trip to the vet where unmentionable things happened (hint: she had to wear a plastic cone after) and of course the trip away from what she clearly thought was her new family. I wished I could tell her that she was going back. As we left the rescue I saw the same sad dog, laying flat in the crate, head down, ears down, heartbreakingly sad.

We made pretty good time that day. As we got off the freeway and closer to the area of her foster home, I sew her head pick up, her ears perked a little. And then when we turned at the main light before their house she sat up, nose in the air and started breathing and smelling so hard! It felt like I could hear her thoughts, so I said to her “Yes! We are going to see them!” I rolled down all the windows so she could know where we were and as we pulled onto their street I could see in her face that she knew where we were.

The family had gathered everyone together for the reintroduction and filmed it. It was so touching to see her run person to person and back to the dog to tell everyone how much she had missed them and give them hugs.

I’ve transported many dogs to their forever homes or to rescue from the shelter, but that day will stick with me forever.

Congratulations to Marsha! Now Wanda McPickle on finding the most wonderful forever family.