13.09.10 Dare arrives home

After one year and 2 months in kennels my boy has finally made it home.
3 weeks of kennel visits, 4 dog meetings on neutral ground and 2 home visits and we have finally persuaded him not to eat me or the other dogs and that although leaving the kennels is scary having a place to call home is worth it !

History of Dare
Dare (was Jack) was brought into the National Animal Welfare Kennels in Cornwall as a 12mth old youngster. He was taken by the dog warden from a very very bad man ! (the words i would use are not really suitable for a blog!) Dare was one of the worse abuse cases the kennels have ever seen.

He was initially a wary boy but was able to be handled by most people however despite the staff's best efforts and care - kennels is just no place for a worried collie pup. His kennel stress became worse and worse until the point where he was only able to be handled by staff and would lunge growling and snarling at any new people who came to see him.

Consequently this seemed to put a few people off rehoming him !! One of my friends is a very lovely lady and works at the kennels (thank you Linda ) - sent me a message on facebook to see if there was anyone i knew who may be interested in Dare.

I went along to meet him that weekend and yep fell in love with him - 9 dogs !! really !!! oh well whats one more :o)

So we have already had quite a long journey for 2 weeks of walking Dare refused to look at me or acknowledge i existed however he so badly wants someone to love that in the end he came around and would gently wag his tail when i turned up, and quickly learnt to offer his paw and to nose touch would get him some liver !

The huge break through was taking him away from the kennels up to our fields so he could have some time out and meet my dogs on neutral ground (Thanks to Lucy from the Kennels for giving up so much of her spare time to do this with me ). It was like seeing a butterfly emerge ! he was such a different dog his tail curled up over his back bouncing, ball chasing , herding and generally being a collie ! Just thinking about it makes me smile !

And so finally he is home - he was very stressed on the journey and i now have a van full of dribble and snot (nice) but he is home home home. I wish i could explain it will all be ok - but i think i will leave that up to good old time and my other dogs :o)

I am going to try and update this loads with pics and videos as i think its a long journey ahead of us . Developing his confidence with strangers is going to be a real learning curve ! So watch this space and wish us as much luck as you can
thanks for reading
Anne and Dare x