fishonjazz
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My old dog died in February after being with us for about 16 years (he was full grown when we took him in so we think he lived to be about 18) and we finally decided we were ready to start looking at adding another dog to our family. So we started looking at Humane Society shelter dogs but didn't immediately find the right one for us (we did find one that we wanted and wish we would have adopted but someone else adopted him before we were ready to pull the trigger)
My wife stumbled across a post online about this dog that no one would take that desperately needed a home and that is where this story begins.
The story goes that a wild dog (the breed is a Carolina Dog, aka American Dingo, aka Dixie Dingo. Google it. Its a wild dog species still living wild in america. Im a huge dog lover and somewhat of an expert and had never heard of the breed before) had pups near Joes Valley Reservoir utah. The mother and pups were seen by campers and outdoor enthusiast for months and eventually most of the pups and the Mom were captured by the authorities (no idea why they would capture the wild animals. Maybe they were being bothersome to campers or something). One of the pups that was not captured was living on its own and hunting/scavenging for its food and whatnot for a while and eventually was also captured and name Joanna (Joes valley. Female dog = Joanna) Joanna was taken to a shelter.
The shelter ran out of funding and was desperately finding homes for all of their animals and of course not taking in any new ones. They found homes for every animal before shutting their doors. Except for one. Joanna.
No one would take Joanna because she was described as feral and malnourished and unwilling to be pet or handled at all. Does not trust humans. She was also described as extremely gentle and submissive and without an aggressive bone in her body. She was also BEAUTIFUL! They said she was approximately 10 months old though they weren't certain.
My dog that died in february was also found in the wild. In the mountains by lake point utah (tooele area). He was extremely malnourished (even worse than Joanna) and had been shot with bb guns (we found bullets embedded in his rib cage) and was also very untrusting of humans. My brother in law caught him after a big thunder/lightning storm that scared him onto his farm. Brother in law sends a picture to me of a poor, skinny, mangy mutt and asks if I want it otherwise it goes to the pound. I drove out and picked up the dog and had a few horrible months where I never thought I would actually keep him forever. He ended up being the best dog I ever had. (cattle dog/border collie mix we think.) So my wife felt like we could do the same with this dog and we would be up to the difficult task at hand.
Anywho back to the story.
We drive to Price utah (about 2 hours and 20 minutes) to meet Joanna. (we thought that is a dumb name and on the drive we heard this song on pandora by Taylor Swift called Willow. Then immediately after that song, another song came on by Will Smiths daughter Willow Smith. We thought the name Willow would be a great name and decided then and there that if we take her home then that is what we would call her) We met her with her handler at a tiny dog park in Price. She was leashed up. We tried to interact with her and pet her etc but she was having none of it. Wouldn't allow us to touch her at. She was so scared. My wife and I stupidly decided we hadn't driven all that way for nothing and so we took the leash and pulled her to my 4runner and I picked her up and put her in the crate inside (I bought a crate from some dude on the way to price lol) and drove her home.
First 24 hours she had diarrhea 7 times in the house. 2 times in her crate which she was locked in so she had poop on herself. So I had to give a terrified wild dog in a brand new situation a bath in less than 24 hours. That was extremely difficult. Through it all she never growled or nipped or whined or showed her teeth or raised her hackles or made a sound. Very surprising. She has/had many many issues as your might expect. #1 biggest issue is that she wouldn't come in the house when she was outside. You would have to catch her. Like herd her to a corner and trap her and get a leash on her or catch her sleeping or something. Once the leash is on her she is pretty good and will mostly go where you take her without resistance. #2 biggest issue is that she destroys everything in the back yard. Plants, trampoline, sprinkling system. everything. #3 biggest issue is that she digs. She tries to dig under the fence into the neighbors yard and its hard to deter her from that goal (we have tried a lot of things). One night she dug under our fence but not far enough to get under the neighbors fence so she was literally trapped/stuck in this tiny space between our fences (about 6 inches wide) and it was insane trying to get her out. I got cut up all over my arms and chest during the process and after trying many things to get her out, I eventually had to did a new hole and grab her by the back legs and pull her under and out which had to hurt her (the fence was digging into her so hard) and again she made no sound and showed no aggression. #4 biggest problem is that though she pretty well behaved indoors, she will not let anyone touch her unless she feels trapped or you trick her or something. So their is little to no reward for all the difficulties she is causing us. We get no love or affection from her. She wont play fetch or tug of war or anything.
She was great on the leash from the start. Walks were/are our happy place. In the last 5 weeks I have probably taken her on over 50 walks. Some of them 5 miles or more. She was AMAZING with our 2 cats from the start. She loves them and they tolerate her. She is very gentle. Even with our snake. She doesn't bark. These are the good things about her. And about the walks, weirdest thing ever. We go on tons of walks. Long walks. Early in the morning before work. Late at night. All times of the day. She NEVER (well amost never) goes pee or poop on walks. I have never seen her pee on a walk. Not once. I only saw her poop 2 times on a walk. That is insane. Its like she is holding it until she gets to our house. Very frustrating. Dog getting the pee and poo out on walks is one of the best things about walks.
I have wanted to give up on her (and still mostly do) but my wife thinks we can fix her and make her into a good dog. Our previous dog took about 3 months to get to the point where we thought it was going to work out and we have only had Willow for about 5 weeks. In the last week she has finally began to come into the house without us having to catch her and leash her which was my #1 issue with her. She is becoming more friendly with us now. She will follow us around the house and lay down somewhat near us rather than spend all her time in her crate. When we do force her into letting us pet her, she seems to kind of enjoy it a little bit now but still never seeks it out at all. She is digging a little less, although that is still a problem. She only has about 1 potty accident per day now. She is a crazy athlete. Insanely fast and her jumping ability is unmatched. She will stand next to the trampoline (which is pretty high up) and without taking any steps she will just effortlessly hop up onto it like its nothing. Then he will take these flying leaps off the tramp and probably get about 8 feet into the air and land like its nothing. I think there is some hope that this can work out but good hell its tough. She is lucky she is so beautiful (her eyes are the color of honey).
Tomorrow im going to attempt to take her on her first car ride since we got her home. I tried to take her on a car ride a while ago and she thrashed like crazy so bad that her collar came off her head and she was in the front yard unleashed without a fence or anything. I though she would bolt and I would never see her again. And remember, she doesn't let anyone touch her. She doesn't come when she is called. She has no collar and no way to leash her even if I could catch her at this point so I figured she was gone. But I opened my side gate into my backyard and she followed my into the back yard and I closed the gate. Another time she thrashed when I tried to take her in through the front door of the house after a walk and got out of her collar and again she followed me through the side gate into the back yard. So that something I guess (I usually take her through the side gate when we go on our walks so I guess she was confused and scared about going through the front door)
If I can get her in the car tomorrow then im going to see how she does at the dog park. I will likely have to keep her on leash which sucks but oh well.
Will be interesting to see if we survive this dog and eventually are able to win this battle and turn her into a domesticated, tame, normal dog. Fingers crossed.
My wife stumbled across a post online about this dog that no one would take that desperately needed a home and that is where this story begins.
The story goes that a wild dog (the breed is a Carolina Dog, aka American Dingo, aka Dixie Dingo. Google it. Its a wild dog species still living wild in america. Im a huge dog lover and somewhat of an expert and had never heard of the breed before) had pups near Joes Valley Reservoir utah. The mother and pups were seen by campers and outdoor enthusiast for months and eventually most of the pups and the Mom were captured by the authorities (no idea why they would capture the wild animals. Maybe they were being bothersome to campers or something). One of the pups that was not captured was living on its own and hunting/scavenging for its food and whatnot for a while and eventually was also captured and name Joanna (Joes valley. Female dog = Joanna) Joanna was taken to a shelter.
The shelter ran out of funding and was desperately finding homes for all of their animals and of course not taking in any new ones. They found homes for every animal before shutting their doors. Except for one. Joanna.
No one would take Joanna because she was described as feral and malnourished and unwilling to be pet or handled at all. Does not trust humans. She was also described as extremely gentle and submissive and without an aggressive bone in her body. She was also BEAUTIFUL! They said she was approximately 10 months old though they weren't certain.
My dog that died in february was also found in the wild. In the mountains by lake point utah (tooele area). He was extremely malnourished (even worse than Joanna) and had been shot with bb guns (we found bullets embedded in his rib cage) and was also very untrusting of humans. My brother in law caught him after a big thunder/lightning storm that scared him onto his farm. Brother in law sends a picture to me of a poor, skinny, mangy mutt and asks if I want it otherwise it goes to the pound. I drove out and picked up the dog and had a few horrible months where I never thought I would actually keep him forever. He ended up being the best dog I ever had. (cattle dog/border collie mix we think.) So my wife felt like we could do the same with this dog and we would be up to the difficult task at hand.
Anywho back to the story.
We drive to Price utah (about 2 hours and 20 minutes) to meet Joanna. (we thought that is a dumb name and on the drive we heard this song on pandora by Taylor Swift called Willow. Then immediately after that song, another song came on by Will Smiths daughter Willow Smith. We thought the name Willow would be a great name and decided then and there that if we take her home then that is what we would call her) We met her with her handler at a tiny dog park in Price. She was leashed up. We tried to interact with her and pet her etc but she was having none of it. Wouldn't allow us to touch her at. She was so scared. My wife and I stupidly decided we hadn't driven all that way for nothing and so we took the leash and pulled her to my 4runner and I picked her up and put her in the crate inside (I bought a crate from some dude on the way to price lol) and drove her home.
First 24 hours she had diarrhea 7 times in the house. 2 times in her crate which she was locked in so she had poop on herself. So I had to give a terrified wild dog in a brand new situation a bath in less than 24 hours. That was extremely difficult. Through it all she never growled or nipped or whined or showed her teeth or raised her hackles or made a sound. Very surprising. She has/had many many issues as your might expect. #1 biggest issue is that she wouldn't come in the house when she was outside. You would have to catch her. Like herd her to a corner and trap her and get a leash on her or catch her sleeping or something. Once the leash is on her she is pretty good and will mostly go where you take her without resistance. #2 biggest issue is that she destroys everything in the back yard. Plants, trampoline, sprinkling system. everything. #3 biggest issue is that she digs. She tries to dig under the fence into the neighbors yard and its hard to deter her from that goal (we have tried a lot of things). One night she dug under our fence but not far enough to get under the neighbors fence so she was literally trapped/stuck in this tiny space between our fences (about 6 inches wide) and it was insane trying to get her out. I got cut up all over my arms and chest during the process and after trying many things to get her out, I eventually had to did a new hole and grab her by the back legs and pull her under and out which had to hurt her (the fence was digging into her so hard) and again she made no sound and showed no aggression. #4 biggest problem is that though she pretty well behaved indoors, she will not let anyone touch her unless she feels trapped or you trick her or something. So their is little to no reward for all the difficulties she is causing us. We get no love or affection from her. She wont play fetch or tug of war or anything.
She was great on the leash from the start. Walks were/are our happy place. In the last 5 weeks I have probably taken her on over 50 walks. Some of them 5 miles or more. She was AMAZING with our 2 cats from the start. She loves them and they tolerate her. She is very gentle. Even with our snake. She doesn't bark. These are the good things about her. And about the walks, weirdest thing ever. We go on tons of walks. Long walks. Early in the morning before work. Late at night. All times of the day. She NEVER (well amost never) goes pee or poop on walks. I have never seen her pee on a walk. Not once. I only saw her poop 2 times on a walk. That is insane. Its like she is holding it until she gets to our house. Very frustrating. Dog getting the pee and poo out on walks is one of the best things about walks.
I have wanted to give up on her (and still mostly do) but my wife thinks we can fix her and make her into a good dog. Our previous dog took about 3 months to get to the point where we thought it was going to work out and we have only had Willow for about 5 weeks. In the last week she has finally began to come into the house without us having to catch her and leash her which was my #1 issue with her. She is becoming more friendly with us now. She will follow us around the house and lay down somewhat near us rather than spend all her time in her crate. When we do force her into letting us pet her, she seems to kind of enjoy it a little bit now but still never seeks it out at all. She is digging a little less, although that is still a problem. She only has about 1 potty accident per day now. She is a crazy athlete. Insanely fast and her jumping ability is unmatched. She will stand next to the trampoline (which is pretty high up) and without taking any steps she will just effortlessly hop up onto it like its nothing. Then he will take these flying leaps off the tramp and probably get about 8 feet into the air and land like its nothing. I think there is some hope that this can work out but good hell its tough. She is lucky she is so beautiful (her eyes are the color of honey).
Tomorrow im going to attempt to take her on her first car ride since we got her home. I tried to take her on a car ride a while ago and she thrashed like crazy so bad that her collar came off her head and she was in the front yard unleashed without a fence or anything. I though she would bolt and I would never see her again. And remember, she doesn't let anyone touch her. She doesn't come when she is called. She has no collar and no way to leash her even if I could catch her at this point so I figured she was gone. But I opened my side gate into my backyard and she followed my into the back yard and I closed the gate. Another time she thrashed when I tried to take her in through the front door of the house after a walk and got out of her collar and again she followed me through the side gate into the back yard. So that something I guess (I usually take her through the side gate when we go on our walks so I guess she was confused and scared about going through the front door)
If I can get her in the car tomorrow then im going to see how she does at the dog park. I will likely have to keep her on leash which sucks but oh well.
Will be interesting to see if we survive this dog and eventually are able to win this battle and turn her into a domesticated, tame, normal dog. Fingers crossed.
