Clarabella’s Course – Week 1

by John Flores

Last week, I pulled Clarabella from a high kill shelter. And this girl was a mess. Skin and bones, severe flea allergies, timid, shy, and showed signs of abuse. As with all my fosters, I will keep a journal of their progress as I help Priceless Pets find her forever home.

Socialization:

Clarabella has shown zero signs of dog aggression. In fact, she’s actually interacted with Penny, Elvis and Wally with no problem. Even though her time with them is very limited and supervised she doesn’t really pay too much attention to them. She’s kind of in her own world. People always want to see dogs play together, which I’m all for. However, I LOVE when dogs can be in a room and just keep to themselves. To me, it’s the ultimate sign of comfort.

Also, when Clarabella first met me, she flinched….a lot. Not so much anymore. She’s VERY toy driven. We are also working on this daily. She is improving, slowly but definitely surely! We’ve bonded quite nicely and she’s actually lying by my feet as I write this morning’s blog.

Training:

Clarabella has gone from horrible to ok on a leash. And when I say horrible, I may be being a bit too nice with that word. However, she does sit on command, she waits for me to exit and enter the door before she proceeds. She does tend to get mouthy when she gets excited but we are working on it.

Her food aggression seems to be gone. You see, when I deal with a starving dog, I still make them respect the food as well as the person feeding them. You can’t feel sorry for them. Like I said before, if you feel sorry for them these dogs will run all over you. Clarabella sits and waits patiently for her food these days and even waits for her command word! Good job, Clarabella!

However, her biggest issue right now is her toy obsession. I’m not a big fan of toys for my dogs unless it’s an actual exercise like fetching the ball where we can work in some focus and training. I do know that most people are and this is why we work on these things. The good news is she doesn’t growl at me when I reach for her toy but I won’t lie, this will be something I will be focusing extra on but she’s already improving!

She has yet to have an accident in the house and sleeps quietly throughout the night in her crate these days after keeping me up for what seemed like 3 days straight!

Overall:

I fully believe she can stay in a home with other dogs as well as be happy as an only dog! Her scabs are healing and she’s a sweet dog. Slowly but surely she’s forgetting that she was ever abused. The whole process of rehabbing dogs is all about baby steps. She is a work in progress but then again….aren’t we all?

John Flores

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