Shelter Dogs Forming Friendships and we Reach the end of the Two Week Training Period

Sunday morning at the farm … it’s been two weeks of formal training, intense exercises and control testing with Luke and Jason.

Today Luke takes a calculated risk and pairs the shelter dogs together for their morning run. Chance and Neveah and Rosco and Molly.

He talks through the strategy. For those that might remember, this was similar to our approach with Freddo, YoYo, Rogan, Conrad and Bobby. Remember the weekend when they were all out together in the big paddock? It was a little nerve racking I remember.

But they had more training time under their belt together in controlled environments before being socialised freely, and it meant they could be unmuzzled.

These guys don’t have two months of all our resources available like we did during lockdown. So their training path is a little different to continue progressing forward.

To some it might seem small, but these are all big steps forward for these guys. Always moving forward. Whilst there’s a few intense moments, overall they do really well and not only are they progressing in their training, they’re enjoying it.

The coming weeks will be something special.

We have reached the end of our two week training period we committed initially. We don’t have the resources to train these guys to be very real and honest, Jason helped us for the two weeks full time whilst Luke managed day care on day care days. Now it’s up to Luke solely outside of ‘after hours’ to continue. But what are we going to do??? Send them back? They’re on death row. This is a massive commitment for Luke. I honestly don’t know too many that work harder and longer hours for the dogs. Maybe I’m over sharing on feelings right now. I’m sorry. But we have discussed this at length so much. It’s going to be difficult for our family but we just feel we can’t give up on them.

I’d usually turn off comments on this kind of rescue post. To save us from seeing a few negatives that get us down. But I’m going to leave them on and ask for some morale boosting words if that’s ok with you all. I’ll pass them on to Luke, he needs some cheering on if you don’t mind.

We lean a lot on you our farm community; our farm dog parents, our staff, our supporters, our followers, our members. All your positivity charges us with energy. We really need it right now to get through the next 4-6 weeks.

Our family thanks you in advance 🙏