I would like to welcome everyone who is new to my blog and has joined us after learning of Meri’s story and the new chapter in her recovery with Dynamite Dog Training in their Board and Train Program!
I am super excited to get to share this process with everyone as it has been more than a learning experience for me and it has always been my goal to share that you don’t need any magical super powers to be a special needs foster.
If you are new to Meri’s story and the story of the 99 dogs who were found in that house in Miami in June of 2019 you can read local news coverage, here, here, and here. (After you have read it, let me know how hard it was to hear that woman say that she hadn’t mis-treated the 100+ animals in her care…. #karmacomesaround)
When the story broke, many South Florida Rescues stepped in to help, with DRSF taking 15 dogs up front and then one more after she was returned two weeks later for being terrified. (That terrified girl was Bobbi and I got to foster her as well. Bobbi healed from her experience faster than Meri did and chose her forever family who adopted her along with another sibling from the same house. You can read about my meltdown in doing the right thing and letting Bobbi go here.)
The DRSF community raised over $6,500 in support of supplies and vetting for the dogs we took in and you can see their intake photos, updates, and happy tales on their Fundrazr. One by one, each of our 16 hoarder dogs found their forever homes between June 2019 and and mid 2020 until only Meri was left…..just sweet Meri sitting under my nightstand and hiding under my bed for well over a year.
I am not a dog trainer or behavior expert of any kind nor did I know anything at all about feral dogs before welcoming two of them into my house thinking I could help them. I am a person who very seldom meets a challenge I am not willing to crazily run head long into and try and solve and I am a lover of research, complementary therapies, and shopping my way through problems. I combined my love of all those things to work with Meri and boy did we try them all:
- Thundershirt
- Bacs Rescue Remedy
- Aconite
- Pheremone Diffuser
- Nina Ottonson Dog Puzzles
- WholeTones for Pets (Use my code x for 10% off!)
- Tapping
- Aromatherapy
- We even had a chance to meet with Joan Ranquet, an internationally renowned animal communicator and TEDX Speaker.
Fast forward over a year and despite my best efforts, we really hadn’t made much progress. Meri was by no means “dogging” but I felt her energy had changed ever so slightly for the better. She would make eye contact with me for a brief second and I felt like maybe she wanted to interact with us, but she didn’t know how.
As I had shared in a previous IG post, some things started getting chewed up around the house which led me to believe that Meri was getting her party on a bit during the day. Once I saw her strolling around the house after I left for work and jumping up on my bed and rolling around on her back to find her comfy spot, it dawned on me that we had made more progress than I thought we had.
I shared my thoughts and video evidence with President Pam, who talked it over with Jamie at Dynamite, and they decided it was worth a chance which has brought us to where we are today with our sweet girl away at Therapy Camp, getting extra special attention and love to help her get to have her happily ever after.
We are just a couple days in, but Meri’s report cards have been giving us hope, even this soon. We are about half way toward covering the generously discounted cost of Meri’s therapy and welcome any support to cover her care at her Fundrazr as well!
