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Coco is one of our best success stories. With the collective efforts of three volunteers, we were able to turn this sweet “feral” (wild) dog into a beloved pet.
Shockingly, Coco was actually an owner turn in at 2 years of age. The good news is we believe she wasn’t an all-too-common victim of physical abuse, but a victim of verbal abuse. She was so terrified of humans that she literally lived under my deck for 3 months. I only saw her in the very early morning hours or in the hours of the very late evening.
Fortunately, she never doubted her foster dog brothers and sisters and with time, they were able to show her not only the fun of being with them (when their owner was far, far away at work), but to eventually let her see that maybe that lady that lived in the house wasn’t so bad after all. At night I started leaving the back door open to see if she would come in the house. After a couple of days, I would hear her trotting up and down the hallway coming to my room so she could take a peak at me while I was sleeping. Then, one night she finally took the plunge and hopped in bed with me.
The road to recovery was and still is with us, but Coco is now with a family who chose her as their very special girl. She is a dog who has come to literally yearn for humans – and the biggest surprise of all is how much she loves to go out in public and meet strangers. People often comment on how scared she seems, yet her mom(s) know that when she returns home, she literally is beaming about how proud she is of herself. She is now living in Oregon with a lovely couple named Erin and Eric and their two border collies.
UPDATE: We were recently informed that Erin and Coco (now named Ruby) have started taking obedience classes together. |
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