How she got here

** photo of Quinnie riding shot-gun in the Animal Control vehicle.


Quinnie went to the Sterling Clinic this morning for a full vetting. I figured it was best to get all of the vetting and trauma out of the way before I start attempting to build trust with her. She came right into the house when we got home and headed straight for her crate. I treated her with a 200c staph remedy and will do so again tomorrow. For those of you unaware, I try to follow a holistic approach with myself and my dogs and Staph is used to treat genital trauma, it is often given to rape victims.


The Animal Control Officer who found Quinnie reached out to me today to give me some details on where/how she was found.

Apparently Quinnie was dumped on 5th Mass Turnpike in Fitchburg, its a heavily wooded area off Route 2, which is a well known dumping ground for just about everything. A passerby spotted her and stopped to try and catch her, only to have her dart away into the woods. He then called Police who contacted animal control.

When the ACO arrive she found this absolutely beautiful pup who was scared of the world. In the area where she had called her own were taco papers (freshly made Taco Bell papers), along with other junk food. We don't know if someone saw her and was feeding her for if someone tossed the tacos to keep her occupied while they drove away.

The man who spotted her helped the ACO pick her up and get her to the front seat of the truck.

No way was this petrified little girl going to the back of the truck and get more panic stricken. Once she was in the truck, there she stayed, shaking uncontrollably and glued to the driver's seat.

Only this little girl and her previous owner know what she has been through but in the animal control officer's career, she has never encountered an animal this terrified or heartbreaking.

To the Vet 10.28.09

It has been 3 days since I picked Quinnie up from Fitchburg and I cant say that any of them have been particularly easy. Quinnie is very nervous around me and more frustrating than that, she is very nervous going through doors.

Getting her in and out of the house is turning into quite the challenge. I have been putting a lead (sorry, a leash, after years of working with horses any 6 foot length of nylon is a lead) on her while she is in her crate then walking her to the door. She cant seem to get there fast enough until she gets there and then all she wants to do is turn around and go back to her crate. I sort of have to barricade her until she decides that the door is less scary than I am and then she bolts through.

Getting her back in is even worse, I open the door, call the other dogs, she follows them right to the entrance, then freezes and jumps of the stairs, she tries over and over again and you can tell she wants nothing more than to be in her warm, safe crate, but that is one scary doorway she has to cross through to get there. I have to go in the kitchen and wait until her foot hits the living room rug before I can dart in and shut the door... if I move to fast she'll barrel right back outside and we have to start all over. You cant imagine how many times I've been late to things over the past few days because I cant get her craziness into the house.

This of course included us being late to the vet today. It was a bit of a long shot but I figured if there were any physiological reasons for her fear then we should find them out. We went to visit my friends at Uxbridge Animal Hospital. Dr Kucia was unbelievably patient and gave as thorough an examination as Quinnie could bear. She appears to be a very healthy 7-9 month old pup who is just terrified of people.

Dr Kucia was only concerned about her dilated pupils. We changed the lighting to see if we could get a reaction but they were "blown out", meaning she was so afraid of everything that was happening that they were simply not responding to the changes in lighting and were fully dilated. The vet says she has only seen a fear response this strong in wild animals like racoons and the occasional feral cat.

Quinnie was so relieved to be out of there she made a bee line straight for my car and as soon as the door was shut she curled into a little ball on the floor board and remained there the whole way home. I am starting to feel like a monster.

** This video was taken the first day Quinnie arrived, if you look closely you can see that when I am standing Quinnie army-crawls and as I transition to my knees Quinnie gets up on all fours and walks very tucked.

Welcome Quinnie 10.25.09

I went up to Fitchburg earlier this afternoon to pick up a new foster dog. Joy had sent a photo of a gorgeous blue merle boxer mix and of course I couldn't resist, I'm a sucker for a sad story especially when its attachd to a bully breed.

I'm not sure what I was expecting but what I saw when I got there was a stunning young dog who was absolutely terrified, and then ofcourse I had to catch her. I closed the exterior door to the kennel, opened up her pen and walked away. After a few minutes she crawled out of the pen, the kennel staff have been letting her roam around the kennel while they clean her pen, after a good ten minutes I managed to get her out into the main area and the pen shut so she couldn't go back in and hide, and finally, I'm ashamed to say, I cornered her to get a collar on her.

It was heartbreaking. She was shaking in fear, her tail tucked but still wagging, and she was doing everything she could to just hide from me which basically meant she was burying her head into her side in that "if I cant see you, you cant see me way" that dogs sometimes have.

I tried leading her to the door which she seemed to think was the worst idea I had come up with yet and I finally gave in and picked her up. I carried her to the back of my SUV and put her in the crate. She pushed herself as far back as she could manage and seemed so relieved when I shut the gate and walked away.

I would guess from her pearly white teeth that she is less than a year old, likely 9 months and I don't want to even think about what has happened in her short life to make her so scared of humans.