Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Camper of the Week!


This interesting looking little guy is "Dragonfly"; he's one of our charter members here at Sit & Stay. "Drags" is a Peruvian hairless mix that came to us with some anti-social behavior.

He lives with two Chinese Crested, and gets along fairly well with them, but he had no tolerance for any other dogs, or people when he first got here. In fact he seemed uncomfortable in his own skin for the first several visits here. Everything scared him, including something as natural as a sudden breeze!

My first course of action was to simply find any sign of joy from him; as in most anti-social cases, this meant observing him and above all patience was key. His nipping was sort of cute and didn't require gloves; he doesn't have many teeth, and with one good eye his depth perception isn't what it should be either.

You might think that would be enough of physical problems, but no, "Drags" also has just one functional ear! We make a point of not "babying" him though, he has no idea that he's any different, so why feed into that? Now that doesn't mean "manhandling" him either, but rather encouraging him to have some fun!

Now, Dragon knows all of our residents, and a good number of our regulars. His confidence has improved by leaps and bounds- it's easy to catch him enjoying himself. The first thing he does when he walks in the door is to greet me, as if to say "when do we get to play?"

Dragon's folks, "The Gordons", are incredibly supportive of our efforts here at Sit & Stay. Mrs Gordon donates time to "Max's Pet Connection", one of the local rescue groups we work with as well. We're looking forward to Dragon and his siblings "Butterfly" and "Fa" boarding with us in the near future- I'll be sure to take tons of photos to share with everyone!

1 comment:

  1. i imagine he was mercileesly teased as a child.."puppies can be so cruel". hahah JK sure is great to hear he's coming out of his shell thanks to you !!

    ReplyDelete