Jade's Story
Jade is a beautiful 2 year old Rottweiler who captured our hearts with her boundless energy and enthusiasm. Her friendly personality has been both a blessing and a curse – although she is an extremely loveable dog, her previous owner was not able to provide her with the time or patience she needed so they surrendered her to the Animal Rescue League of Boston.
Jade immediately brightened up the ARLB and Center for Shelter Dogs’ offices with her energetic greetings. She loved everyone she met and almost knocked over a few people in her eagerness to say hello. We realized that we would have to teach Jade to express her affections in a calmer way so that she could be a fun pet without overwhelming her new owner or visitors to her new home. At first, Jade tended to get overexcited on the leash, biting and play-growling over her leash and playing tug. She also mouthed people and jumped on them as they walked by. We recognized that such habits might cause people to be reluctant to adopt her, and quickly set about training her to be a little calmer. We used treats to get her to settle and lay down on command, and only paid attention to her if she was sitting – and soon enough, Jade learned that she would get more attention if she calmed down. Although she would still sometimes try to bite her leash, we taught her to drop the leash on command and walk properly.
Jade also had a tendency to guard her food when she first arrived at the ARLB. However, after some training, Jade soon realized that people didn’t want to steal her food and seemed to feel comfortable leaving her bowl in our presence. She also became less protective of her toys and learned to play fetch – although she was reluctant to play at first, she realized how much fun it was and began bringing her toys back and dropping them on command.
After several weeks of training, Jade managed to capture the heart of her perfect human match, Karen. Karen was looking for a dog to shower with affection, and she was enamored by Jade’s friendly personality; we knew Karen was perfect for Jade because she recognized that she still needed additional training, and she was up to the challenge of managing her bouts of over-friendliness. Karen and Jade went home together, and five months later Jade (whose new name is Kariba) loves her life with Karen and is doing wonderfully. Thanks to Karen’s patience, her previous toy and food aggressive behaviors are completely gone, and she allows people to take her bowl away without protesting. The pair attended twelve weeks of training classes together, and Kariba was the star of the class –she knows commands such as ‘sit’, ‘down’, ‘touch’, ‘go to bed’, ‘drop’, and ‘leave it’ and she plays well with other dogs.
Karen is extremely happy about her decision to adopt Kariba, and she is enthusiastic about the help she received from the Center for Shelter Dogs and the ARLB. She tells us that the support she found at the ARL has been a “huge, huge help” and that the adoption would not have been successful without our services and constant training assistance. We are certain that they are going to enjoy many happy years together, and we wish them the very best.