Cattle dog mix puppy, female
Poppy has been here for a few months. She's about 5 months old now. She originally came into rescue with her brother Casper, who was adopted. Her background story is a sad one (full story available at https://www.facebook.com/www.cchdrescue.org search posts for Poppy) The short version is that the puppies had been living on their own in a field in Bakersfield with a number of other feral dogs. When she first arrived, Poppy couldn’t be handled. With a muzzle, she was vaccinated and micro-chipped, but she was scared and didn’t want anything to do with people.
After a few months at the rescue, Poppy is desensitized enough to follow off leash, sleep in a crate with the door open, all night. Sometimes she wakes me up to go potty, but she does run right to the door when I open it, and comes back a few minutes later and back to sleep.
She's very smart. Poppy needed to learn not to use her mouth! I can handle her now with caution, She always has taken treats gently from my fingertips. And she is very food motivated, so an easy in with Poppy, is some basic obedience work. She loves to train when we have time.
Poppy attached herself to my personal dogs. She very much needed a mother. She probably got minimal rearing by hers... deceased. And she is so enthralled with the adult dogs here.
We've had a lot of social pups here too, and Poppy is learning from them too. It's adorable to see her playing with pups who are much younger than she is, but mentally in the same age range as Poppy missed out on so much from her young puppyhood. If dogs don't get what they need in these first crucial months, it's a hard long row to hoe to restore some normality. Poppy is doing her best.
It was a rough start for Poppy. She was so scared, and not very nice. Good thing for her she is just adorable, and seems to be staying that way.
Poppy is not an entry level puppy! She needs a savvy adopter, with a dog or more, (she is great in a pack!), someone who understands dog behavior, especially herding dogs. And one who will just saturate Poppy with a social life of people and noise.
More photos and updates: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1318450495783268&type=3
Interested in Poppy? Please complete an application at: http://bit.ly/CCHDR_App
December 7, 2024, 7:22 pm
