Blessed Critters
Posted on February 9, 2014 Posted by John Scalzi 12 Comments
My friend Alisha is trying to help out an animal shelter local to her called Blessed Critters, who are doing a little bit of fund raising due to unexpected rising costs. Here’s what she wrote to me when she asked if I could boost the signal:
“I am asking for help for them because of our own personal experience. About a month ago, our recently adopted second dog began demonstrating strong aggressive, alpha behaviors, and we needed to remove her before she further injured our other dog, or decided to actually bite one of the children. We live in an area without a no-kill shelter, and we’ve been here only a short time. Cadie Hennig and Blessed Critters took our dog with no hesitations, even though they were already sheltering more than 30 dogs. They took the time to find out all of Sam’s good features, and have been working to retrain her. They clearly love the animals that they are housing – dogs, cats, goats, and/or whatever else needs a home. Over the last several months they have been facing increasing difficulties, but they keep working on faith. I’m hoping that your readers might be able to help them.”
Check out their fundraising page, and if you think it’s a worthy cause, consider giving them a donation.
I’m all for no kill shelters but am curious where you could place a dog with an increasingly aggressive, potentially violent nature?
Steve: depends on why the dog is acting that way. Too many reasons to count, but start with… dog is/was afraid. Undersocialized. Same-sex aggression. Food possessive. Toy possessive.
Most owners don’t have the skills or abilities to diagnose problems like that, much less solve them. Is that what’s happening in the above story? Dunno. But Blessed Critters was able to help this woman and her family, and that’s what we’re asked to respond to.
Steve:
Some dogs are better in single dog homes. For years we had an akita, who was just wonderful and a delightful pet. I also wouldn’t have ever tried to bring a second dog permanently into our mix, because she wouldn’t have been happy with that, and an unhappy akita is not what you want. A dog who does not work well in one situation can be a perfect dog in another.
That said, the issue here is not this dog in particular, other than to the extent that the shelter worked to help find it a good home.
I just wanted to thank you John for posting about us. Thanks to your post, we have already raised $230! As to the dog (just so everyone knows) she just needed some behavioral retraining. In other words, she needed an alpha. She is now doing great with other dogs and has recently become adoption ready.
>where you could place a dog with an increasingly aggressive, potentially violent nature?
“have been working to retrain” –quote from the main text above.
Place a bad dog with a trainer who will run it thru boot camp (dogs are social critters, same as humans and horses) and give good enough parenting and therapy? Most bad dogs go good.
Hi Cadie,
The pop-up PayPal window is giving me trouble with credentials–may be because I have two-factor enabled (though not sure). Any chance you could toss a physical address in the comments here so I can send a check?
Blessed Critters
2834 Clifton Bryan Road
Zolfo Springs, FL 33890
Thanks!
This shelter is actually quite close to me, as I live & work in Bradenton, Florida. I’ll make a donation from home tonight, & have shared the request on my Facebook page. Thanks for the share, John!
Done. Hope it helps.
Also, aggression can be medical – anything from hypothyroidism to a toothache to joint pain. But too many owners don’t realize it and just figure that the dog has “turned mean” and dump him.
$1121 so far – Thank you all! The dogs can get their rabies vaccines, those in need of neutering can be, and Blessed Critters can feed all its animals for another month. The fundraiser is still going, if you’d like to donate and make that two months!
Blessed Critters Animal Rescue Inc is 53% of the way to our goal!