Benton-Franklin Humane Society BFHS (a no-kill facility) was our home shelter in Washington state.  We have many warm memories from there.  The majority of the staff went through our in-depth voluntary training program and were very dedicated to improving the quality of living for their animals. That's something that we really respect.  Working with any shelter can be difficult at times due to the rejection and return of animals that you know have true potential and inner beauty.  The other side of that is the sense of relief, happiness and accomplishment when you work with a dog until they find the perfect home.  We have two cases in particular that are deeply touching for us. Cuddles Cuddles was the first dog that was pointed out to us when we arrived at the shelter.  She had been surrendered at 8 weeks old and when we started working with her, she was 2 years old.  Cuddles was considered unadoptable due to fear aggression towards people and fence fighting with her fellow canines.  She had never learned how to hold her bladder so she had incontinence issues, so much so that her original name was "Puddles".  She had never learned how to socialize with people or other animals and her reactions were always excessive. The very first thing we did was change her name.  After working with her in the shelter for a few months, we decided that she needed more intensive rehabilitation so we brought her into our home and fostered her.  Two of our three dogs were also isolated during their early socialization periods so the rehabilitation process was familiar.  Since we had worked with her at the shelter we had a strong bond and she deeply trusted us.  This made bringing her into our home a relatively smooth transition.  She picked up on the house rules and structure fairly quickly (and we have a lot of rules).  Once we removed her from the shelter environment her stress level reduced and she was less reactive to people and other dogs.  We spent a lot of time socializing her with our dogs and teaching her appropriate manners.  Since she was isolated during her developmental stages she was not comfortable simply hanging out with other dogs.  She needed to feel protected from them and also learn that it was not her responsibility to discipline them.  We accomplished this by making sure that all of the dogs viewed us as their pack leaders by emulating a wild canine alpha who controls food, resources, sleeping arrangement, potential threats, leads migrations and has a level of calm confidence that creates a strong feeling of security and unity in the rest of the pack.  The level of competition is reduced when the top leadership positions are filled, because no one fights that hard to be number 3, 4, 5 or 6. Once she was comfortable with other dogs, we took her out in public and let her absorb the concept of being around strangers without feeling threatened.  This took some work.  She's a pretty little dog and so the biggest problem we had were strangers walking up and reaching for her head to pet her without asking permission.  She would growl or snap at them for committing an aggressive act (physical contact without a dog's permission and without allowing them to smell you is considered aggressive to most dogs - puppies can be socialized out of that natural instinct but Cuddles didn't have that opportunity) and then they would yell at us for letting a vicious dog out in public.  When we could get people to ignore her, she slowly became more and more comfortable.  It's a matter of feeling safe.  As long as we were right beside her (or in front of her) and didn't allow them to touch her, she would lie down and trust us to protect her.  That was a major milestone.  To house train her we had to approach it from several angles.  First of all, she needed to grasp the concept of there being only one acceptable location to do her business.  To convey this idea, we tethered her to us (looped the handle of her leash through a belt that one of us was wearing) and then had her follow us everywhere.  This not only allowed us to catch her when she was considering a location to eliminate, but also helped teach her house rules (such as what was acceptable to chew on and what was to be left alone).  So we took her outside every 1/2 hour at first and at any point that she started sniffing for a location to go.  Secondly, we needed to extend her bladder strength, since in the shelter environment she never had to hold it for even a minute and she had a nervous habit of constantly jumping in her kennel, which may have caused some damage.  So we slowly extended the length of time that we made her hold her bladder.  Once she understood the concept of going outside, she wholeheartedly participated in the activity.  With any type of behavior modification you will have spikes of improvement and plateaus.  Well, Cuddles sped through the bladder strengthen process, and then leveled out at being able to hold it for a full 2 hours.  Progress after that was much slower.  With a lot of dedication, we got her to the point where she would hold it for several hours during the day.  When she slept it was a different story.  Her bladder let go every time she fell asleep.  To contain the mess, we took the bottom of a plastic crate, set a pillow in it and attached her leash to the foot of our bed at night until she understood that this was where we wanted her to sleep.  Every morning I would wash the pillow and sanitize the crate liner.  Even if we took her out several times at night, she still piddled in her bed.  Limiting evening water intake was helpful, but not enough.  At this point she could consciously hold it, but needed help with nighttime control. So the last piece of the puzzle was a trip to our veterinarian.  They gave us a medication that helped tighten her sphincter muscles.  Within a very short amount of time she was making it through the night without issues. So Cuddles went through a few months of rehabilitation in our home.  There wasn't that much interest from the public in adopting her, since she wasn't a "perfect puppy".  But then one day we got a call from a couple that lived on the other side of the state in Everett, WA.  They had seen her write up on BFHS's website and drove all the way down to adopt her.  We made sure that they fully understood her issues and they were still eager to take her home.  Since then we have had several updates.  They are very happy with her and love her dearly.  They make sure that strangers don't invade her space and as long as they ignore her she sits calmly and watches them.  Her reactions to strange dogs are now limited to sitting down and whining instead of attacking.  Her new family has taken the time to work with her and have dedicated a lot of love and energy into her.  That is the best possible outcome for our beloved Cuddles. Duke Rehabilitating Duke was definitely an adventure.  We learned a lot from this gorgeous giant.  When Duke was dumped off at the shelter he had been isolated in his back yard for several years.  He was in severe depression and was an escape artist.  The problem with adopting him out was not that nobody wanted him, but that everyone felt sorry for him and wanted to shower him with love and affection.  So we brought him into our home to foster him and give him a chance to overcome his depression.  The key with rehabilitating depression (or any behavioral issue) is to make the dog feel safe without rewarding the undesirable behavior.  So we had to give Duke a black and white choice: lay on the floor without moving and receive absolutely no acknowledgement or stand up and join the group and receive love and affection. This was tough, but undeniably necessary.  It took four days of ignoring Duke (of course we fed him, exercised him and took him out to do his business - but no talking, touching or eye contact at all) for him to make the choice to join the rest of the group.  We were playing with our dogs in the same room and having a fun time and he looked over, lifted his head, stood up and walked over into the middle of the group.  Then we played with him! After that breakthrough moment we had to reinforce that any mopey behavior would immediately turn off all affection and attention.  Within a short amount of time he let go of that old pattern and interacted with a more balanced state of mind. Another side of Duke emerged after that point.  Once his depression fell away, we found ourselves with an extremely dominant dog.  He communicated his insistence to be in charge by refusing to give eye contact, acknowledge any direction we gave him and most importantly by trying to take our followers away.  It's important to keep in mind that a leader can only be in charge if he/she has willing followers.  So a battle between two potential leaders is over who has the allegiance of the lower pack members.  So whenever we were working with Kita, Jackson and/or Hoshi, Duke would run by and try to distract them.  He would try to get in between us or give dominant gestures to them whenever possible. It was a fascinating conversation to have.  Luckily our dogs weren't too difficult to keep focused on us.  After seven weeks of this type of interaction, Duke decided to join the pack instead of try to take it over.  We had one wonderful week of being a balanced pack and then the perfect home came along for him and we adopted him out.  Duke is now the sole dog of a very nice farmer whose family owns hundreds of acres.  He is with his person all of the time and the last progress report that we received was overwhelmingly positive.  Duke tried to run away from him once, so he got in his truck and drove away.  Once he circled around and stopped, Duke jumped in and never tried that trick again.  I think we found his perfect match.       505-604-6367 2003 Southern Blvd. SE #102-85, Rio Rancho, NM 87144 answers@afreshperspectivedogtraining.com