A dog who spent over three years at the shelter struggling with trust and fear of new people has had an incredible breakthrough.
Not much is known about Sabie’s life before he came to Patty Baker Humane Society Naples (HSN) in Florida. He arrived there from another shelter that had just recently closed down.
While Sabie’s life before remains something of a mystery, what was clear from the moment he arrived was that Sabie was a nervous dog, prone to being standoffish or even reactive with people he was unfamiliar with, exhibiting a set of behaviors often referred to as “stranger danger.”
The reasons why Sabie is like this can never be known for sure. Sarah Baeckler CEO of HSN, told Newsweek: “Just like humans, sometimes dogs just have a nervous personality. Sometimes they have scary experiences that teach them not to trust new humans.”
“Sabie seems like a pup who didn’t get that chance to learn to love humans early in his life, so it’s taken a long time to help him see that we can be okay sometimes.”
Whatever the reason, Sabie’s struggles have undoubtedly led to her being overlooked by visitors to HSN. Shelter dogs have a small window of time in which to make an impression on a visitor.
A 2014 study published in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science found shelter visitors interacted with just one dog per visit and that these interactions lasted an average of just eight minutes. Sabie was the opposite of that. He needed someone able to take things slow.
That someone ended up being Gary, who only shared his first name, a volunteer who paid a visit to the shelter back in October. “The reason for my visit was just to fill the void in my heart, after just having to say goodbye to our Labrador Kona, in August,” Gary told the HSN in an email shared with Newsweek. “As I was walking by the kennel Sabie was in, we kind of locked eyes for a couple of minutes.”
It was only later that Gary discovered the fact Sabie had no aggressive reaction in that moment was unusual. Staff told Gary about Sabie’s “fear of strangers, his difficulty in being an adoptable pet under most circumstances and his limited connection with only the few that he had developed a relationship with.”
The more he learned, the more Gary “felt a connection” to this most disconnected of shelter dogs. It was one he was eager to explore, so asked staff if he could spend some time with Sabie, and “bring some light and love to his life.”
Gary started out visiting twice a week for walks with Sabie and two members of staff holding him with a muzzle. “I had to stay about 15 feet away and couldn’t make much eye contact with him,” he said.
Eventually, that moved on to playing fetch, with Gary throwing toys from behind a fence. “As I walked away from our sessions, he would watch as I would leave treats on the sidewalk for him,” he said. “I was absolutely hooked on furthering the possibility of getting inside the yard with him.”
Things have progressed further over the months that have followed. Sabie reacts with “interest and affection” to Gary. “He comes to the door of his kennel to greet me, and even rubs his body against the yard fences, so that I was able to pet him through the fence,” he said.
Gary can now play with him in the yard, with Sabie no longer wearing a muzzle and happy to be fed treats by his new friend, while remaining on a leash. The next step for Gary is to take Sabie out for the day.
“All I ever wanted was an opportunity to give him a break from kennel life,” he said. “The crew has told me of his enjoyment of riding in the car, getting a burger from Sonic, and just changing his environment.”
For Baeckler, Sabie’s transformation is evidence of the incredible impact volunteers can have on the life of a shelter dog. “No matter where you are, there is probably a ‘Sabie’ in a shelter near you, and you don’t necessarily have to adopt them to make a huge impact in their lives,” she said.
“Walk in and ask for who has been there the longest, who struggles the most, who needs a break, who is nervous about meeting people. Offer to be the person a scared or shut down dog meets. You won’t necessarily see the difference right away, but if every shelter had just a handful of Gary’s, we’d collectively make so much progress for our dog friends.”
While the ultimate goal is to find Sabie a home with someone kind and caring like Gary, for now the focus is on this unique friendship. “I’m excited to begin this next phase of our friendship,” Gary said. “If this quest we’re on should ultimately lead to him getting adopted, maybe I can negotiate visitation rights with his owners!””
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