Second Chance Dogs

the suspect is accused of keeping over 200 animals in and around her home to Marion County hearing today in Washington County to determine what to do with a hundred dogs taken Rico City police seized dozens of dogs made one arrest in a puppy mill raid Monday night the dogs will be kept at the county shelter pending the suspects trial [Music] [Music] [Music] the reason that this project is so incredibly exciting to me is because it has so much potential for widespread impact and it's so unique my name is Kristen Collins and I'm the director of anti-cruelty behavior rehabilitation and I am overseeing all operations here at the rehab center the ASPCA behavioral rehabilitation center is the first-ever facility dedicated to the rehabilitation of canine victims of animal cruelty like dogs from puppy mills and hoarding cases not only will we be helping the dogs we bring into the program we'll also be keeping track of what's working and what's not working this way at the end of our two year projects we hope to discover how best to rehabilitate these fearful dogs this project was born from a real need we were working a hoarding case in western Tennessee it was probably 100 degrees that day there were about a hundred dogs living in the field and the sheriff was gonna shoot all the dogs we had to attach all the dogs medically and behaviorally assess all the dogs and plays all the dogs in about 16 hours there were four dogs left that we did not have placement for because they needed just a little bit more help but it's these emotional wounds that can be the most debilitating and can cause needless euthanasia for animals so that night we determined in June of 2010 at the ASPCA needed a space where abused animals can come and recover and be dogs today Lauren and I are gonna pick up three Malamutes they're coming from a rescue in Virginia Angela brown who runs that rescue is gonna meet us in Pennsylvania [Music] the melzar from a puppy mill in Montana Angela's told us that their unsocialized and really fearful I hope we can help them if we can't resolve their behavior problems these dogs will never find loving homes [Music] each day I get here about 5:00 in the morning and I spend 12 hours here working with dogs it's a commitment but it works for me last year just here we were able to adopt 51 Malamutes and so that would be 51 that would otherwise be dead the Malamutes were seized from a puppy mill in Montana on October 11 2011 there were over 160 dogs and several of which were pregnant so that resulted in a little over 200 dogs the dogs upon seizure were in very very poor condition there's a girl here she weighed about 35 pounds and she had nine puppies and only one of her puppies survived the owner would throw a bag of food in with 150 dogs and there would be fight so we have dogs with no ears there were oh gosh probably 40 50 easily that were so fearful that they just could not adjust and we contacted the ASPCA about the new rehab center because these are dogs that would otherwise not have a chance [Music] hey Angela so where are you now well let's figure out where we can meet wow this is great great weather thank you and the LMU weather the dogs initially looked a bit timid and relatively calm in their grades until they came out Angela blows me away she's incredible she's she's not a large woman yet she handles these huge Malamutes so well these three are super shot and they right now probably are not adoptable and hopefully this program will help them become a doctor I don't know what kind of progress these three dogs are gonna make that's one of the reasons that this project is so important we don't know what the predictors are of success for dogs like these so I have no way of knowing how they're gonna do [Music] many dogs from puppy mill and hoarding case backgrounds are so fearful that they can't get adopted when we saw these dogs we remove them from the property and we did medical intake haven't cared for that we help them become physically better and then there was a group of dogs that really needed more help than that they needed behavioral healing too because they simply weren't placeable they don't go into homes and recover with just time and love they've been to behaviorally damaged it was heartbreaking and we didn't feel like we were truly rescuing them this project is the answer we can help these dogs we can take them in and we can provide that behavioral healing they need when we can make many of them adoptable I believe we won't be able to save them all but I think we can make an incredible difference I think this project can have such an impact [Music] the shelter's all across the country don't always have the resources to help the most critically fearful dogs cat designed a database using FileMaker and iPads and she has been the driving force behind the development of our study daily progress is being tracked on individual dogs through their treatments and through the enrichment that we do with them every single day we are also performing behavior evaluation that puts the dog in real life situations that they're likely to experience and evaluates how they're able to cope with that we meet every morning to make sure we know who's doing what and talk about challenges and also breakthroughs if you guys know what you're gonna do today we had six dogs come in five ducks ins and one little Chihuahua mix we are going to do a medical examination first so what we do is we just look at their teeth check to see if they're hydrated well see if they need any vaccinations just make sure they're generally healthy before they go right into the kennels [Music] the doctors came to us from our cruelty intervention advocacy department they were working on a case and they went into the house and found many many dachshunds there when we first went to visit the pet owner was resistant and by repeated visits and by bringing supplies such as pet food and other items we really started to gain their trust the first time I walked into this home it was really overwhelming first of all they were all barking at us you know there is urine and feces all over the house we saw that there were 55 dachshunds that the dogs were having litter after litter and that only a couple were spayed and neutered we quickly realized that this was an intervention that really needed to happen and happen quickly during her intake today lily was really frightened she was quivering the entire time and her eyeballs were huge I know that she was really terrified on the property and when they tried to remove her she bit the owner on the ear [Music] you look nice in your news sugar is he's a Spitfire he's definitely defensive so when you try to approach him it's really tough to leash him up he bares his teeth and he will snap and bark aggressively at you he looks like he's interested in interacting but he's at times all teeth he's clearly under socialized to people we may be able to help him overcome his defensive behavior and learn to like people we are incredibly excited to give them what they deserve at this point but they have a long road ahead [Music] I'm originally from Atlanta Georgia and I have always loved animals these are my three dogs this is tofu she came from a hoarding case in Tennessee she had 74 other dogs living in the house with her and then we have wink the border collie who came from the Richmond SPCA and he's so much fun and and there's Juneau who is 13 and a half Juno has been with me since she was only five weeks old I've channeled all of my maternal instincts into her I wake up every morning passionately believing in what we are doing and why we are doing it I hope people will understand that the dogs that come from these terrible situations can indeed make wonderful pets dog that's had a hard start in life really deserves a happy ending [Music] after three days of enrichment and care the dogs are ready for their first behavior evaluation which is basically a series of tests to determine each dog's level of fear he is very well known in our industry and for good reason she is an incredible trainer she's great doing behavior modification and we're grateful to st. Hubert's what we were doing in the first evaluation is establishing a baseline we exposed them to very situations that they would experience during life as a pet dog and use that as a guide during their treatment since many of these animals come from puppy mills or hoarding cases it's not uncommon for them to have never seen or used a staircase a common situation in everyday life of a pet dog can be an unfamiliar scary obstacle to them one of the last tests for our evaluation is to put the dog in an everyday type of room which we built here specifically for this purpose through the use of a baby monitor we watch what they do when they are alone do they look anxious are they inquisitive do they relax or do they bark we trap it all the treatment protocols that we use are based in science it's based on what we know of clinical animal behavior which is a science that has existed for a few decades now and basically that science is dedicated towards understanding why animals behave in certain ways that they do and how we can change their behavior fear doesn't always show itself by the dog huddling in a back corner shivering uncontrollably or urinating but whether it's obvious or whether it takes a trained professional to diagnose it fear of people is always debilitating to a companion animal can you imagine living life in a state of constant terror that's what these dogs live with day to day a puppy mill is basically a large-scale commercial dog breeding facility where profit is put ahead of the well-being of the dogs and we're talking about the breeding dogs here not the puppies so those cute little puppies and the pet stores they get out very early this is where their mom and dad live their whole lives with the ASPCA estimates that there are probably about 10,000 puppy mills Missouri has more puppy mills than any other state in the country by far and then when you sort of spread from Missouri you start to see higher prevalences in the states around them a puppy mill can have as few as ten dogs or it can have as many as a thousand dog the breeding dogs typically live in very small cages they're usually no more than six inches longer than the dog in each direction which is what they legally have to be they usually live on wire flooring which can injure their paws usually stacked on top of each other which means be seized in urine can rain down onto the dogs below water bowls that are full of algae or they have feces in them so that it's not really even drinkable for the dogs there's usually a very very severe lack of veterinary care so we often see dogs suffering from things that are easily treatable by a veterinarian but the breeders don't want to spend the money on those vets because they want to make as much money as they can imagine having a toothache that lasts for eight years because you never get to see a dentist we often see a lot of mange and skin diseases dogs whose hair is so heavily matted that their fur actually can tear their skin we usually see dogs who have had very little human contact and because of that they shy away from human touch [Music] if you buy a puppy in a pet store or online or at a flea market or someplace where you haven't actually seen where that puppy comes from you're running the risk of buying a dog that has anything from an upper respiratory infection to something severe like Pardo or distemper which can be fatal and you also run the risk that that dog is going to show up with genetic defects later in life we estimate that about 99 percent of puppies and pet stores come from puppy mills what we're trying to get pet stores to do is not sell puppies and instead work with their local community to make adoptable animals available in their stores if you do buy a puppy at a pet store or online not only do you run the risk of taking home a sick puppy but you're also supporting a very cool industry today is the first day of treatments and the whole team is really excited so our plan is designed to treat the common problems we see in dogs from puppy mill cases and hoarding cases there are protocols that help the dogs overcome fear of walking on a leash there are protocols that help dogs overcome the fear of people and the fear of handling is another big thing they struggle with and the last one is fear of novelty so many of our protocols help them learn to experience new things Lily is making slow steady progress she does like training so we taught her to hand target and we started to see social behavior in that context the treatment I enjoy best is probably hand targeting it's a lot of fun to see the dogs pick up on I look at the person's hand and I get a treat and then they work up to reaching towards the hand until they're actually touching your hand did that hands aren't as scary for them she consistently has a problem for back claws being touched she likes to offer her front paws instead so we have to work on that I may have to work just reaching for her back claws and I'm actually touching him first today we're gonna do a quiet time in pen session with thunder he's shown very little social behavior so what I'm hoping to do during this session is just create some new associations so that he is associating me with things like cheese and toys and good stuff that's going to here we're about to do a session where he is allowed to approach me to get food but I'm not gonna put any pressure on him to do so so if he decides to approach he can but he doesn't have to if he would prefer to sniff around and leave me alone he can do that too thunders initial evaluation concerned me greatly we saw no friendly behavior throughout the entire evaluation he seemed extremely fearful and when we tried to touch him he was defensive and growled and and moved his head like he was he was going to Duane to snap so I'm gonna throw food pretty far away from me at first so he doesn't have to make himself uncomfortable by approaching me good man he's definitely keeping his distance and proximity is obviously a big clue he's not comfortable enough to approach and he's also moving very hesitantly he's watching everybody in the space and those little barks he's giving our little suspicious alarm barks these guys are as a as a group Malamutes are usually pretty vocal so it's not surprising because Issa he's expressing his is a discomfort by barking a little bit and it makes sense he's not sure what's going on right now [Music] anybody's boy very good boy Thunder he's uh blowing his coat he needs to be groomed he's got Tufts of fur coming off of him and normally what you do is he'd brush the dog to remove those those Tufts that are coming off but thunder is extremely uncomfortable with handling and he'll growl if you try to touch him or groom him thunders a big boy so if he is fearful and he is not okay with touching for example that's gonna be a problem for him going into a home one of the most important things I think to realize about under socialized dogs is that forcing them to interact with people usually is a very bad idea if I were to pressure him right now and approach him instead of allowing him to approach me that could be number one dangerous for me but also could convince him that people are indeed very scary a lot of the time fearful dogs are much more comfortable approaching you from behind instead of the front because dogs are individuals not all treatments will will work the same for them although this is a study and we have a plan we do realize that we need to be flexible some of these dogs will need a little more work on one problem so we are adjusting based on the dogs reactions to what we're doing [Music] one treatment involve Avalon one of the Malamutes and working with her on the stairs while Cheryl's gotten her used to the turf covered steps so far Avalon has refused to walk down the wooden side in terms of Avalon I've found her treatment to be slow and steady there is a fear I think for everybody on the team that individual dogs are not going to be able to graduate through the program we are dealing with dogs that have such a tremendous amount of fear and anxiety what I like for every single dog to come out on the other end and and and be successful absolutely but but that's not really a reality oh that's so scary that you're so brave you're so brave oh my goodness that always awesome oh my so this is actually the first time that Avalon is actually gone up and down the wood stairs we've been working really hard on the on the grassy stairs but those wooden stairs are a little bit scarier they're slippery they don't have any backs on them and that could be a whole lot more frightening for a dog this was the first time it was awesome [Music] I'm really worried about tabatha she really did exhibits social behavior just hints of social behavior from the beginning she was curious she seems to be making the slowest progress of them all we're trying to prepare her for a less stressful transport once she is transported back to her rescue group or to a potential adopter we want to make it as stress-free as possible right now she is still a bit apprehensive but we're doing a special kind of training to get her used to it the first step is to get her into the kennel so we use a low-value reward we're using kibble for that and I'm just putting a couple pieces in the back here every time she steps further into the crate I'm going to mark it with the word good or yes and toss in a higher value treat such as this cheese good job I see at first she's trying to see any possible way if you get those treats without going inside yes you'll see she's really stretching doing everything she can to totally commit to stepping her whole body inside need a break okay [Music] good job let's go this is salty this is actually her first treatment session ever so we're gonna do a helper dog playgroup with pepper who has already decided he likes people salty is more fearful it'll be great for her to hang out with one who's not worried about us we have found through doing clay groups a lot of them actually come out of their shell and that is actually a treatment that we do was called helper dog playgroups so the idea here is that salty will do whatever she wants to do and that the presence of this other dog will relax her enough to help her work up the bravery to greet us Lauren's also practicing peppers very fancy new trick he has learned to give me five it helps dogs get used to Pau handling which many are very sensitive about we've seen salty play with toys inside her kennel so I'm hoping that she'll uh she'll become comfortable enough to play out here after she gets used to the grass which is apparently very strange [Music] an insult he started to really get into playing with pepper she was having fun for the first time since she arrived and then it happened we had a breakthrough his salty she approached me and took some food which was a first our helper dog strategy worked it's really amazing to see the more fearful dog actually start to approach the person as well I think she just realized she was close to me this might seem tiny but for salty it was a big step forward I want to leave it's kind of a nice yard I promise you can come back Sugar's at Chihuahua mix from a hoarding case who comes up and barks at you every time you walk by his kennel [Music] so most people would probably assume that he is not fearful because it's tail its upright his ears are forward and he's bark-bark-bark versus most of the other dogs who are cowering in the back of the kennel perhaps one of sugars main issues is not wanting to be touched so I'm kind of amazed that after just one week of treatment he's doing so well he seems to have formed a connection with Cheryl we start off working with the dogs in their kennel just being comfortable with our presence and as they become more comfortable and more familiar with us then we can start to work on things like us being able to reach towards them us being able to get them to look to us and then further on into handling treatments what I have noticed is that some dogs respond a little bit better to just really patient slow gentle handling and others do need a little bit more of a push are you ready to go back you did some good work that's a good boy a blonde is still really worried when you approach and when you touch her her level of fear I think has reduced but she's not made the leaps of progress that we've seen with thunder I think there was a major breakthrough when we took him outside and we started to attempt to play with him with toys [Music] we didn't expect him to respond to that at all but we tried some spooky toys with him and we saw some playful behavior and as soon as we did we ran with that I think that was an enormous ly important discovery obviously the toys aren't nearly as much fun if they're not moving so people I hope you will discover have the power to make his toys fun these dogs from these backgrounds they don't usually know what toys are he's just a playful dog and that was sort of a wake into him it's the first glimpse of him enjoying life [Music] hoarding is a psychological disorder and it's a compulsive disorder that affects people in many different ways an animal hoarding is just one of them we've seen hoarding situations that might have this few is a dozen animals up to more than a thousand it's really not based on the total number of animals but the quality of life they provide from the animals orders are oblivious to the harm that they're causing when in fact there are dead animals on the bed dead animals on the kitchen table if you just go in take the animals away and leave the situation of the relapse rate is virtually a hundred percent animals that come out of hoarding cases often exhibit extreme fear because they've been born had certainly lived in an environment where they literally have to fight for every inch of space I've seen houses with you know 200 medium-sized dogs where dogs are standing on kitchen tables and kitchen counter tops just to be able to have space to move around in the past if there were serious behavioral problems or other medical problems often the response was euthanasia the perception has changed now we recognize that the victims of Cruelty are individuals that deserve some having extra effort to try to undo the harm that has been done to them by human beings you suspect that something's going on we urge people to just take the time to look into it make the call because that one call is often what it takes to really trigger the help of both the animals and the individuals may need [Music] it's been a few months since all the dogs started their treatment and we're really happy with their progress some of our most fearful ones seem to be progressing at a rate I didn't expect and some of our least fearful are taking more time to respond to treatments this just confirms what all dog owners already know that every dog is an individual just like us humans what we're gonna do is get Tabitha out because she needs help with thresholds she does a very very poor job of walking through them because they scare her to death so what we're gonna try to do is bring her through here using Juno as a helper dog she's gonna walk through and go yeah it's food and hopefully Tabitha will walk through and say yeah it's food also she's excited about the food and sleeping and the food plus the food Oh food as you can see Tabitha hesitates and backs away this is really hard for her amazingly on the second try Tabitha walks through being able to follow Juno roosted Tabitha's confidence and reduced her stress levels significantly and the important thing to do now is to reinforce the behavior by repeating it over and over again until Tabitha Associates tasty treats and good times with walking through doorways I'm really proud of Tabitha and I love that Juno was able to help most good things in life are because of Jenna thank you for helping you were a very good helper doc I would be we made an incredible discovery today we decided to try the Malamutes together we thought we'd try to take Avalon and thunder put them in the play area and monitor closely to see how it went and surprise surprise they played and played and played it was very interesting to see how much they both loosened up and brave we had no idea that they were gonna like each other and they do we're definitely gonna incorporate play with each other into their treatment [Music] the final part of today's treatment is to introduce them to the joys of the puppy pool like the toys this is probably the first chance they've had to play in a pool they just don't know what they're missing but on the bright side it's clear we have a love connection [Music] Salty's is moving along but she's not making a lot of progress at this point we're gonna try putting her in some different situations with helper dogs so what we're gonna be doing today is taking both pepper and salty to meet some new people salty tends to be a little bit more tentative and so pepper being there offers her a little bit more comfort hi Anne would you mind coming out and saying hi to salty here she is this is salty over here BFFs with pepper we start by having a novel person give treats to both of them then I slowly back off with pepper and let salty do it all by herself salty did such a great job that we decided to ask some folks walking by if they would also like to give them treats they were more than happy to help and I thought salty did really well I love when she won't work out Lily's making slow steady progress but she's still really worried about handling so we're gonna try body targeting and see how that goes well so what we started to do with her was if I put out my hand have her give us her Toshi's thank you and then I worked my hand down to her feet initially she was very afraid of that what we're gonna do is focus on building a positive association with the great we are doing this crate training because she is very close to graduating and going to hopefully st. Hubert's and then being placed in a home that'll definitely set her up for success [Music] we Bernie [Music] when he first came to us he was really fearful about anybody touching any part of his body so the fact that thunder is letting Jill touch him like this seems like a small thing but in fact for this particular dog it's an enormous thing this is so much better that he was doing his last evaluation even they seemed to prefer not being touched and they may be that way for the rest of their lives our job here is to make it so that they can be handled if that's necessary we've switched now to jill touching him instead of him touching Jill's that have been cautious with our movements we started to move more like an adopter might just reach out and touch him I would see with the brush at this point [Music] when he first came we all went crazy wanting to pluck the Tufts off but there was no way we could get near him with a brush it's nice that even though he's uncomfortable he's able to cope with the fear and discomfort he has boy guys show good very good job for me why pretty girl so Avalon is at a very different spot in Thunder and working with handling she will tolerate handling and where thunder will that you know that he doesn't like it she kind of shuts down and looks miserable but will let you touch her so I'm just using the clicker to mark when she stood still long enough and let me pet her basically touch your paw and work down there oh it's horrible touching is horrible so I'm just gonna touch upon and give her a treat or a couple treats when she first came in she was a lot like thunder where if she actually bump into you she would be terrified now when I went to go get her out of her kennel she was jumping up and down and spinning in circles I'm very excited to be coming out there's a couple challenges that we still have she's very sensitive to sound and movement and her adopters will have to continue to work on that [Music] [Music] we were about to start Sugar's final evaluation and I'm very hopeful because he's made many strides over the past few months one dog who may be very confident in kennel very confident when walking on a leash when they meet strangers or when they meet certain objects they are incredibly fearful some of them do show aggression when they're fearful we don't have a lot of those dogs but sugar is one of them so our evaluation is really helpful in understanding the different complexities of fear all dogs in our program go through three evaluations over the course of their stay here a lot of it is basically a repeat of the same tests this way we can compare their responses over time and see how much better or worse they're doing one of the last tests in our evaluation is leaving the dog alone in the outdoor pen and recording how many taped lines they cross some dogs will explore some stay frozen in one spot some frantically paced around or try to escape after three minutes the evaluator joins the dog in the pen and stands on the X we then use the circles to determine how close the dog gets to the person [Music] shirkers evaluation went so well he's ready he's ready to go home we're about to begin thundering Avalon's last treatment they've come a long way in just a few months we're excited about the prospect of finding them a forever home we are going to have thunder and Avalon meet new people that they never met before [Music] to see under nav Ilan's entire demeanor change in just a few months has been incredible knowing how fearful they once were of strangers and seeing them today tells me they are truly ready to be adopted [Music] today is sugar and Salty's last day with us we're really excited to to see them move on to the next chapter of their life she's just one of these dykes just just so happy I can't help but smile and you see her to put in you know the time day after day and be able to see the progress that we've seen I can't even describe it it's such an amazing feeling [Music] they've come a long way and it's gonna be hard to see them go this is Lily's last day here at the rehab center she is actually graduating today along with caramel chrysanthemum and pepper Lily has had amazing progress you could tell that she really just wanted some human affection she has been delight to work with her and the three other dachshunds are going to feel going right over to st. Hubert's to be adopted out [Music] I'm going to be sad to see Lily go however I'm very excited for her to be adapted into a new home [Music] today we are thrilled because Avalon and thunder are going to their forever home together the doctors are Malamute enthusiasts which i think is great because they already know what to expect from the breed I'm very pleased they're going but I'm gonna miss them a lot when we drove out to get them from Angela brown I remember seeing them in their crates in her truck seeing their faces and thinking those are extremely terrified dogs I don't know if we can help them and now after a great deal of work to see the immense amount of progress they've made I couldn't be prouder of them I built thanks for coming nice to meet you you ready to meet the dogs yes as you can see they're in love oh look his tails tails up - I'm gonna get cheese here dad I know I say we all start missin to give kisses so he's actually wagon very good one end that's so great I [Laughter] don't think I've seen them take to someone this quickly and be that someone they don't know [Music] [Music] leaves such a nice relationship [Music] the issues that Avalon and thunder had and still have to some degree are because of the puppy mill environment they were raised in working with them over these past few months and seeing how far they've come fills my heart with hope and it makes me realize I have the greatest job in the world [Music] bill will be an excellent Guardian and I wish thunder and Avalon the best success as they finally after years of puppy mills and shelters find themselves in their new forever home [Music] we've recently adopted sugar who we renamed pumpkin and he's been part of our family for about four months now when we visited the shelter there was little pumpkin by himself in this big path and when we went in there he was so sweet and adorable and he just seemed to love the attention of the girls it was just felt like he was meant to be ours every weekend we have a pumpkin Appreciation Day and we take him to like Central Park birth a new dog park I think rescue animals in general make amazing pets [Music] I've never when we first started walking together that was quite the challenge and now we've gotten to the point where we can walk down the street almost with no intention on the line my wife Debbie was looking on the internet looking for mail meals that were in need of a home she saw these two and they're just gorgeous and she thought all their menus they'll be just fine we'll make room for him in our home it was just sweet to be around especially after sweetest little voice it's been almost a full three months since we have adopted Avalon and thunder and we've come a long ways and getting to know each other it's just that you know they have their special needs I have no idea what they endured but when we're all together it's quite the pleasure we love them dearly we recently adopted the salty now known as a lien and she's a proud member of our new family with her sister Amber and she's come a long way in six months it's important to rescue from a rescue shelter because they deserve to know that there's a meaning in life well we first adopt that are just to stare at her she would take off and run away nowadays she's confident enough to jump up on my lap sits with me and now it's accepting neighbors that she's familiar with now I think it's important to take a dog that had a bad start in life and let them know that everybody is not like the people that they were raised with that there's someone out there to love them and take care of them and I love showing her that there's a real family out there since she went through a lot when she was little they deserved to know that someone cares [Music] we live during the Depression up in that Bush my father said we're going to get a dachshund from that time on we've always had dachshunds a friend of mine told me that she was a volunteer at st. Hubert's in a week and a half later I got a call from Boni and she said oh they have a dachshund and then my daughter and I went over and we met this darling little Lily and she came home with us her tail was between her legs all the time she would go away from you as you went down to pet her she would back off but she got over it very quickly no Lily Lily Lily yeah let me wipe that eye out yes I'm 88 years old now and I know a dog is the best friend you can probably have because they listen to all your problems and yes they don't talk but they sympathize and this is what we need as we get older a little more sympathy you get a little bit stiff your feet hurts your knees hurt and so you just avoid walking with Lily I have to get out she makes me walk she just loves to go around the whole yard sniff sniff sniff sniff sniff sniff sniffing and I have to walk and that is good for me physically to be loved by someone that's what dogs are for and I think she knows this is home I think we were meant for one another you're just my old sweet girl [Music] our last group of dogs from our first six months here have all finished the program I know their families will get as much love and joy having them in their lives as we did working with them all dogs deserve a chance to have a loving family even the most fearful especially the most fearful we just got word that 17 more fearful dogs are due to arrive any minute now everyone's getting into gear and taking care of business [Music] I see them everyday staring up at me from behind the kennel doors and I wonder if this is the day the day they will find their forever home our program is limited in the number of dogs we can work with but if we take what we've learned here and share it with shelters across the country I believe it will impact millions the successes that I've seen here so far I will never forget it's been amazing and so rewarding to see these animals finally enjoy life watching them go from suffering and terror to playing and having people touch them and enjoying that to see them become pets I really have no words for how wonderful [Music] you [Music] [Music] [Music] you [Music] you

Channel: ASPCA

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Length: 57min 4sec (3424 seconds)

Published: Wed May 09 2018