Lessons from the final frontier...
Most dogs don't need to be fixed
They need to be fixed, as in sterilized. They don’t need to be fixed, as in corrected, repaired, or rehabilitated.
When I started rescuing dogs who were in danger of being killed for behavior at “No Kill” shelters, the final frontier of sheltering, I thought they needed training. Over the years, my understanding has changed a lot. It’s not that I now think training is bad, but I have a different view of dogs’ needs. Now I think they need to feel safe, physically and emotionally. Training can help a dog feel safe, or it can prevent them from feeling safe. Training that is coercive or controlling, even if it is done entirely with rewards and without corrections or punishment, can make a dog feel unsafe.
Beau spent almost a year in a No Kill shelter and then spent several months in foster and several more months in boarding before being placed in a new type of boarding, a therapeutic, home-based boarding business where he has been learning to feel safe and becoming more emotionally resilient. He’s now ready for a home, but it needs to be the right home or he’s likely to regress.
The conventional shelter wisdom of 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months has its roots in stray hold times, and those are rooted in the concept of dogs as property. Helping a dog to feel safe can take a long time, like months or even years. But we’re not going to learn how to do it by killing them.