How many dogs do you have? Haven

I'm planning on making this a regular feature, to highlight some of my own dogs and some of my fosters. Haven probably wouldn't have gone first but as it turns out, she's in a trial run in a possible adoptive home, and like any over-protective mom, I can't help but worry about how she's doing.

Haven was confiscated by the courts for abuse. Dogs aren't held in high esteem in the county I work with the most. It's not at all unusual for a dog to spend its whole life chained outside, or left in a tiny kennel run with a dilapidated dog house. And so I have to assume that if the police and then the courts intervened, Haven's life was quite wretched even by their standards.

I love this picture because she looks so fierce but she isn't really. Her mom was a Rottweiler and it looks like she has some kind of shepherd too, perhaps Aussie. I chose her name because I thought it was pretty and fits a dog from her background. After I discovered Haven Kimmel's books, I was kinda pleased I already had a dog named after her. It's not like Molly, where every 6th dog has my name.

After months in our home, Haven has settled into our routine just fine. She has never had a problem with any of the other dogs, doesn't get into any trouble (well, unless you're a cat or a rat, which is another whole story.) She is so submissive and so grateful to be treated kindly that if we even look at her, she wags her tail so hard that half her body wags along too. Still it's not easy being Haven. She is afraid of everything. For the first years of her life, what little experience she had was frightening. Now the most important thing we can do is have patience and give her time. With dogs like Haven, sooner or later someone will come along who sees something special and who is willing to take on the job of teaching them to enjoy the life dogs were meant to have.

They all really do find their place, if they're given enough time for that to happen. Sometimes it takes a few tries before it finally works out. People will say they understand the effort it will take and then change their minds within days of living with a dog who bolts at the slightest movement or has to be left on a leash and nearly pulled back into the house after going outside. I suppose in a way it sounds cruel to put a dog through these kinds of changes, knowing how very frightened she will be. The alternative however is worse, and for a dog who just desperately wants to be loved, how can you not give them every possible chance towards that outcome?

The couple who would like to adopt Haven had an abused dog before. He had to be out to sleep recently and when they were ready again for another dog, they chose Haven. They spent some time with her first, and worked towards winning her over. Yesterday I met them again and put her in their car to go home, hopefully to stay. She was so scared. It really is heartbreaking, to have to hand her over like that, knowing she doesn't understand. It has to be this way though because I cannot keep them all. And she deserves her own special home where she is cherished. Now all I can do is hold my breath and wait to see how it turns out. More to come soon.