There was one dog who particularly touched my heart today. His name is Peek-a-Boo. He's a recent addition to Best Friends, as he was found just months ago tied up in the nearby Peekaboo canyon. Worse than being tied up and abandoned, he also had severe blunt force trauma to his head. It was described to me as clearly intentional and the weapon was something like a baseball bat. This type of story makes me so sad, but so grateful that Best Friends exists. Peek-a-Boo spent the first bit of his time at Best Friends at the Vet Center. He was shut down to humans - not acknowledging our existence. He has come a long way in a couple months. He now interacts with humans and even knows "sit" and "down." He's an amazing and gentle dog. He is still very fearful if you try to touch his head (or in my case, put both a collar and a halter over his head). But he did not lash out at me at all. Once we got past putting things near his head, we enjoyed a wonderful walk together. Here he is doing sit and down on his walk:
He's skin and bones right now but he's finally getting the love and care that he needs at Best Friends. He will make an unbelievably wonderful family dog and I can't wait for him to have his happily ever after.
Thursday lunches are always awesome because different departments throughout the sanctuary share stories of what's going on in their areas. Today, the rabbit update was about bonding and they featured pictures of Benjamin and Fargo that I helped bond in the past couple weeks! There were great stories from every department, and it's always inspiring.
After lunch, it was time to pick up Pepsi and take him to his training class. I get so much joy when I see him and spend time with him. He did amazingly well in class today! He hardly barked at all, and if he did get distracted by another dog, all I had to do was say his name and he would re-direct his focus right back to me. We worked on "sit," which he now can do with only a verbal command, and "down," which he can sometimes do with just a verbal command, but still usually needs a hand lure. We had fun learning to do "Puppy Push-ups," where the dog goes into a sit, then a down, then a sit, and a down, and so on. Pepsi loved doing them! Next week for our last class together, I'm supposed to teach Pepsi a trick. I know he's amazingly smart, so I hope I can come up with something clever and teach it to him in time.
Pepsi and I spent some quiet time together after class. We usually don't go out and do something very stimulating because class is already over-stimulating for him. We enjoy snuggling together and I tell him what a good boy he was in class and how proud of him I am. After spending some time with him, I put him back in his run. It hit me like a ton of bricks that I only have one more week left with him. I've fallen completely in love with him and formed a strong bond. As I was saying goodbye to him today and he was looking at me through his door, still wagging his tail in hopes I'd stay and play, I teared up knowing that I would have to say goodbye forever next week. I can't stand the thought of abandoning him. He's in a wonderful place at Best Friends, but this boy needs to be in a home! Somebody please adopt him! Here he is in his run as I said goodbye this afternoon:
It was a bittersweet end to my day, but I look forward to the time I have left at this amazing sanctuary!
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