Becs gang

when we went to meet Pallando, the only things we knew about him were that he was a malnourished Great Dane who needed an emergency foster/adopter. he took up a lot of space and needed a lot of resources that the rescue wasn’t super equipped to accommodate, and they really wanted to find him a placement. it was only when we got there that they gave us the rundown of what they had observed during his short stay with them. he was a resource guarder, he wasn’t house trained, and he didn’t walk well on a leash. this was not done in an attempt to deter us. this was not done in an attempt to make him look like a bad dog. they specifically wanted him to be out of their facility as soon as ethically possible, and they had no reason to try and ‘scare off’ potential adopters. they were simply giving us the information they had so that we could make an informed decision on whether or not we’d be a good fit. given that none of these things were dealbreakers, we decided to adopt him

in the past ~4 months of living with us, he hasn’t displayed a single one of these behaviors. he asks to go out and do his business, he walks exceptionally well on a leash (even sits at crosswalks!), and i’ve grabbed a stolen chicken bone right out of his mouth without an ounce of protest (risky on my part, but i still have all 10 fingers so it’s fine)

despite this, i fully believe that the rescue was 100% telling the truth and sharing it with his best interest in mind. he probably did resource guard, eliminate on the floor, and drag people around on the leash while he was with them, and i’m glad that they let us know instead of just crossing their fingers and hoping it was all stress related. we fully lucked out in the ‘oops, all stress!’ department. these things could have just as easily transferred to life in a new home, and it was a responsible decision on the rescue’s part to place him with people ready to handle them.

Some dogs that are reactive are only reactive in certain scenarios. Some are reactive only to certain dogs. Some are reactive only in certain spaces.

For instance, my dog is a collie/cattledog mix I've had since she was a puppy. She grew up around other dogs and never had problems with them until she got attacked by a Shepherd mix because some idiot was letting his dog run loose because he was too lazy to hook her up to a leash to have her go to the bathroom even though there's a leash law and she was CLEARLY dog aggressive, standing up and charging from sighting mine from about 50ft away (i do not and will never blame a dog for bad behavior, I will blame the owner though). After that, she became reactive to shepherds/Shepherd mixes and would start to bark at them if any got within sight distance of her. I had to work with some larger non-reactive dogs to get her to be less reactive and more just leery but I still watch and i still try to get information about other dogs that might want to visit and play with her before agreeing to let her meet them. Yet I would classify her as dog friendly, because she is 99% of the time. It's just the one scenario with the one type of dog that makes her not.

She also is not a resource guarder-- EXCEPT if we are opening presents and another dog comes in to see what's going on. You see, Penelope loves to assist by gently tearing the wrapping paper off the present while you hold it. But if another dog comes up to inspect, she's snap and growl at them. This is a dog who sits pitifully while another dog shoves in and eats her food, or who comes to tell me she's sad because another dog took her favorite bone or toy, because she doesn't fight back. Heck, my parakeet used to fly down and land on her toys and this 70lb dog would just sit at look at her like "My touys..... :((((" and cry while Watson pecked and walked all over them.

Now take these stories and flip them. In a shelter, where there's a lot of noise and stress and smell, a dog may be resource guarding 99% of the time. A dog might be skittish and unable to be relaxed enough to not be reactive to other dogs or while on leash (unable to escape of their own free will). But you take them home and make the proper steps to introduce this dog to a new household? Maybe that changes. Maybe your established dog is just the right personality to not make the reactive dog react (dogs that do the "-sniff- .....neat. -ignores other dog-" behavior when encountering a new dog are great for practicing socialization with for more hyperactive/reactive dogs because they just Don't Care, for instance). Maybe the quiet and smell of your house unwinds the typically stressed out dog enough for them to be receptive to change. Maybe the new routine and increased attention helps shift that dog's personality and behaviors to the positive.

But what if it doesn't? THIS is why shelters and rescues warn you about behaviors they've seen. It's not to dissuade you from adopting, it's so you can look and say "OK it says he's not good with other dogs. I have a dog at home, maybe we can arrange a home visit to try them out?" Or "Oh it says he's not house trained. I have some time off work I can take, I should do that so I can work on getting him house trained and on a schedule when he first gets home with me.". It's so you dont just get a dog, turn it loose at your place and then potentially get this dog put on a list or, worse, euthanized if it bites your established dog or child or etc because you weren't informed. It's so that during the interview staff can ask you about your home and your previous experience with dogs and see if you'd be a good fit.