6/06/2012

THE SCARED ONES OF ZAMORA


That’s how Cobie, the woman in charge of the Scooby residencia lovingly calls them, these dogs that came in from Scooby Zamora to the premises we have in Valladolid about 7 months ago.
Fermin told me about the status of these dogs who spent approximately 2 years in Scooby Zamora, having suffered from abuse prior to their arrival, and they were extremely traumatized and not socialized with people, as you can see in this video

He asked me if there was something we could do for them, since because they are scared, they tend to bite to defend themselves, and the chance of them being adopted because of that was next to zero, so they would have to spend all their life in the refuge centre. Of course I told him that at least we would give it a try to be able to give them at least a chance. So we took them to the Residencia and a group of volunteers started working with them. I would like to take this opportunity to express my warmest thanks and appreciation to Luis, Raquel, Esther, Lidia y Monica for the terrific job they’re doing and of course to Cobie for caring for them in the residencia.
After only a few months, the progress they are making is varying, some are better than others, some are still as scared as when they came in.  In these first photo’s you can see how they where when they arrived and in the following ones you can see their progress.




Therefore, we thought about the possibility of bringing them to Scooby, because in the residencia they will only be seeing the volunteers that work with them and Cobie, which might halt their progress. They need to meet more people, pass time with other dogs and especially adapt themselves little by little to different situations without forcing them. The most ideal situation would be to work with them individually but it was simply not possible since we don’t have any shelterhomes with a patio or garden where they can go outside, and right now they don’t even accept a leash.
So, for all the volunteers from any part of the world, please go to Scooby this year so you can get to know them and when you see any of them in the paddock, please don’t try to catch them or touch them in an abrupt way; they are “special” dogs that need friendly words, gentle gestures and for the moment some distance from people. You could offer them food so they could come closer to you and see that we humans are not all as bad as the ones abusing them. In a shelter situation their recuperation will be very slow, but we will keep on working with them so we could find them a home.

Finally we would like to say that soon we hope to have a blog ready about canine education on the spanish page of the Scooby website, where we can keep you informed of the news on these dogs or any other dogs with similar problems. We will have videos, articles and news about the ethology and the education of canines.