Talking about trust and being very insecure, my dog would not go into any enclosed structure outside of our home for 6 weeks once we adopted her. She would not even go into the mail room with me or any entrance with a door, outside of our home. She did go into small dog parks willingly and actually looked forward to it.
I rescued my dog from a Pet Smart store in Las Vegas, from the At Home Foundation, where they had adoptions on Weekends. It took my dog over 3 months to get permanently adopted. She was living in a cage during that time. She was extremely wild and unruly when we first got her. And she was only 18 months old when we first got her. She had all this pent up energy that needed to be unleashed. Finding that big dog park was very helpful. There were lots of dogs there and she played almost non-stop, running around and tussling with the other dogs for hours on end. It was quite a sight to behold and it was great therapy for her and for us.
What bonded me to my dog was watching her play with the other dogs and making good friends. In particular, I saw how kind and gentle she was to the other dogs. That's when I began to love her. One day there was this very small dog, about 6 pounds, who was playing with my dog quite aggressively. Yet my dog did nothing. She was trying to figure out how to play with this dog without hurting her. Usually, she would tussle intensely with a dog and they would end up lying down for the other while they would take turns being the aggressor, but this time she did not do that. Instead, she took little sweet nips around the dog's neck, being very careful not to hurt this 6 pound dog. She stole my heart at that point and I knew she had a heart of gold and was a keeper. |
