Reality Bites

I've been very lucky up until this point that all I've had to give you were happy progress stories. Unfortunately in this line of work, especially with these types of situations, we're bound to hit a bump, in this case practically a road block. Part of the responsibility leading a blog is the honest truth, so here goes. As you know last Monday was supposed to be moving day for Nina and Nevada. Unfortunately things didn't go nearly as well as it did when we moved Nora and Natasha. Emily and I followed the exact pattern that we had used with the other two. We were prepared, organized and we handled it exactly the same as before. However this time these two girls didn't react in the way we had hoped. For those of you with a sensitive stomach I'll save you the details, but both Emily and I had to be treated for bite wounds. We were anticipating the possibility of this behavior with Nevada, since she has alwasy been the most reserved and as a young puppy was the quickest to use her mouth, but we weren't anticipating this behavior from Nina. They both bit hard, repetitively, and never settled. To say that this has been a difficult week for me would be an understatement. I have become so attached to all four of these special girls and want to see all of them have happy endings. I have spent hours thinking about how to handle this situation. I have a timeline and a deadline, set outside of my control by their age. Obviously we all know that Nina and Nevada can't live in my back yard in their "safe" pen forever. Once they reach 6 months old they will need to be spayed as well as receive other veterinary care. They will reach that point in about 6 weeks. By that time if they are not able to be handled in a way where they can be transported and examined by a veterinarian a decision will have to be made. Right now because of the severe reaction they had to being handled in a way they didn't like, they are not adoptable. I have contacted 3 sanctuaries (and am looking for more) about the possibility of transferring them, it would allow them to be in a place where they could be housed and worked with long term. I'm still waiting to hear back from two of them and I will keep you posted on that. In the meantime I will continue to work with them with the goal of being able to put collars on them to do leash work and other training that could happen outside their pen. It was a bad day for them too, but they recovered almost immediately. Today was their best training day to date. Nina actually sought out petting from me, and stood calmly while I massaged her neck. With the use of food I was petting Nevada almost all over her body. We've forgiven one another.