11/29/05: Meet Ozzy, a neutered 1 1/2 year old male purebred Golden. He’ll be microchipped shortly, so everything will be in order. Ozzy is the reason many of us become involved in rescues; a wonderful puppy (dog) is abused and thinks strange humans mean him harm and needs to learn to trust us. It is evident Ozzy really wants to trust people, but he knows first hand, bad things come from people, too. Belts and other things that snap and some strangers really frighten him.
Ozzy was initially surrendered to a humane society as a puppy last winter because he was gun shy; we’re thinking Ozzy was the lucky one! His collar was starting to become embedded into his neck and it was apparent people were scary. He was loved and coddled as a patient at one of the metro vet tech schools, neutered, tested for allergies (of which he did test positive to some foods and ragweed, but has been treated primarily with just a good dry dog food and an occasional Benadryl). He then was blessed to go home with a very loving someone from the school. They worked with him and taught him the wonders of the Golden life but with the addition of Ozzy, they were one dog over their limit … and got caught. Ozzy was loved and learned to love the parents, 4 boys, ages 7 to 16 and fit in with their 3 dogs and cats. Of course, his Favorite person in the whole world is one of the boys!
Ozzy is a beautiful dark golden color, with incredible eyes that tell you “please be gentle, I SO want to trust you!” He stands a very tall 27” at the shoulders (and is a little overweight), so is a very big boy. It does make it VERY easy to pet him without even bending over! He Does know how big he is though and hasn’t run into or stepped on the other dogs or us.
When Ozzy arrived last nite, he was scared of our world. When we got up this morning, he awoke a different dog - happy, silly, very puppy-ish playing in the season’s first snow, with an incredible recall – for me. We’ll be working on that response so it’s to all of us here and hopefully, to some willing strangers. We found he loves squeaky toys so expect to see some photos with his green and yellow football!
He’s quite reserved with people he doesn’t know and reacts by running away and hides (behind furniture or his human). He’s never given his former family any indication he would harm anyone, even when cornered – “just let me get away and hide” and if cornered, “Please don’t hurt me”! He seems to want to trust strangers but his experiences say “Careful! Be prepared to run.” He’s crate trained so we’re using that as his safe place. He also appears to be wonderfully housebroken; barking at the door when he needs to go out. He’s fine with everyone but our cat, who’s scared of strange dogs and runs; we think Ozzy would play the chase game if allowed. He is fine with our other dog savvy cat.
Stay tuned as we learn more about Ozzy and what his ideal home might be.
