09/08/2026
🚨 EDUCATIONAL POST
🦄 Looking for the right people🤞
After every adoption, people are understandable excited for their new best friend to come home, and we get it! It’s an exciting time! But when adopting a dog, there seems to be a lack of understanding, patience, and willingness to respect boundaries.
This is Meatball, and he is a sweet boy, but he has boundaries that people have crossed, which has lead to a couple of bites. Is he unsafe? No. Is he unpredictable? No. Does he have some quirks? Sure he does! Does he have reasonable boundaries that should be respected? ABSOLUTELY!!! In his last potential home he’d been there for less than 24hrs, he had an accident and he was forcibly grabbed and his face rubbed in it. Soon after the same person that did that to him was bitten.
When bringing home a new canine companion, realizing that you guys aren’t best friends right from the start is extremely important! People want to love, cuddle, and be too up close and personal too soon. Do some dogs love it? Sure but the majority don’t appreciate that. You’ve just brought home a shelter dog whose spent time in a kennel environment. They need time to adjust to a home, new people, sounds, smells, etc. We live in a society that for the most part, refuse to respect a dog’s boundaries, and the dog is not allowed to say no. You just met this dog, and you want to invade their space, get in their face, grab them, or expect them to just deal with whatever you feel like doing and expect the dog to just be ok with it. How is that fair? This has been the problem with our Meatball each time. In less than 24hrs in a strange place with strange people, he’s been spooked, or unfairly handled and he said no.
Meatball is a dog that needs some boundaries set for him, he needs an owner who is confident and who will take a leadership position so that he feels confident that he doesn’t need to defend himself. Instead he’s been put in positions where he’s felt threatened. After each incident he is confused and scared, he doesn’t want to have to defend himself, but as usual, humans have failed him. Meatball has been evaluated by a professional dog trainer, and he DOES NOT like confrontation. He is intelligent, food motivated, and loves to learn. He just need someone who will give him time, patience, boundaries, and direction.
🚨Given his history- we do not want to set him up for failure, so he needs to be the only pet.
If you’ve been looking for a flat faced, pig like, stubby legged dog that would prefer to spend 85% of his day lounging around the house, give us a call at 540-921-2053 or send us a message on Facebook! We can also give you contact information for the trainer that evaluated him as well!
