Kobe The Pound Dog
“I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” the voice on my answering machine wailed, “Kobe is terrified of our free range rabbits, he has to be dragged outside. Can you please help?” This was years ago, but I still remember how complex the problem with Kobe was. He was a pound dog, who had been adopted and rejected so many times it should be a world record. A beautiful, long haired, black and white dog, he was a gentle soul, making friends with everyone.
I first met him at our local pound. He had been adopted by a friend of mine. All had been going well, until the fourth week. He became terrified of shoes. All shoes that were not on people’s feet became things to growl and snarl at. If someone dropped a shoe in his path, it would be instant clean up time, as fear released both bladder and bowels. He was brought back to the pound.
Another new home. Again all was well until the fourth week. Kobe was found huddled behind a chair, growling at a bookshelf. What was with this dog! First shoes, now a bookshelf? Where was the connection? He ended up back at the pound. This time a great deal of training went into the dog before he was adopted out again. He was returned four weeks later because he was so afraid of the family’s old cat that he peed on the spot if the cat walked into the room.
When he was returned again, no one was happy. His keepers began to talk that perhaps the humane thing would be to just put him out of his misery. I had been in and out of the shelter and had grown to love the dog. He liked nothing better than to sit outside on the grass, while I brushed him. I was puzzled and disappointed that people kept returning him. We all wanted to help, we just didn’t know what his problem was.
I asked a young couple who just bought a small farm if they would take Kobe. His history was explained in great detail. They fell in love with the sweet natured dog, and agreed to try. All was fine until I recieved the phone call that when Kobe spotted the pet rabbits on the farm, he freaked. He tore through a screen door to get back inside. The couple felt that his quality of life was so poor, they thought he should be put down.
By this time he had been seen by so many vet’s, dog trainers, animal specialists, even a psychic who offered her services free. She said he was traumatized by one of his past lives where he had been a fox and hunted by dogs. Well that didn’t help much, but at least she tried.
I went out to the farm where Kobe was living to see for myself what on earth was triggering his weird ways. It was exactly the way they had said, Kobe had to be dragged outside to pee. If a bunny rabbit happened to pop out from under a bush, he fought in a frenzy of fear to get back into the house.
None of us wanted to give up. We got together, someone spread a map out and we found that all of his adopted homes were within a ten mile radius, close to a small town. This was years ago, when few dogs were taken to a pound. This pound always opened for adoptions on the first of the month. Kobe was adoped, then freaked out on the fourth week. Could there be something happening in the time frame of four weeks, where he was placed in a new home, then in four weeks he would become terrifed of something?
Bingo!!
One of the vet’s had mentioned that Kobe had extremely sharp hearing. We should have listened to him. Every time Kobe would behave in a panic of terror, was the same time that a fire hall in the small town turned their siren on for testing. Every four weeks. Like some children with autisim, who can’t handle noise, Kobe had a similar problem. When the siren went off, whatever he saw in front of him, was locked into his mind. Even after the siren went off, Kobe retained the memory of what he had seen, and he couldn’t get past that. He would be returned, adopted, in four weeks the siren would wail, Kobe would latch on to something to place his great distress on, and the problem would repeat itslelf, over and over.
The dog trainers took over. Someone was with him when the siren went off. His fears became manageable. He never competely recovered, loud noises, or sounds that humans could not hear would upset him. He learned to live with it. His quality of life improved to where he was a happy, tail wagging, friendly dog. It was a lesson to all of us who had worked with the pound dog, never give up.
