Happy Tails: Myrtle

Almost one year ago, the Castillo family adopted Myrtle, a retriever mix rescued from a hoarding case in October of 2018. Fearful and unsocialized, Myrtle was terrified of being touched or even looked at. Thankfully for Myrtle, our behavior team doesn’t give up on animals so easily.

Myrtle was placed into our Behavior Rehabilitation Program, a regimented system of training and enrichment over the period of many months that is designed to desensitize abused and traumatized dogs to the presence and touch of humans. We are so grateful to the ASPCA for doing the years of research for this program and for helping us be the first shelter to implement their program at our facilities. The process is slow, painstaking, and full of setbacks and disappointments, but every second we take to improve the lives of these emotionally scarred animals is worth it.

Once the dogs in this program reach certain milestones with human interaction, they graduate from the program and we begin searching for the right home to manage their lifelong fears. After more than a year in our care, Myrtle found the Castillo family. They had this to say about Myrtle:

“Its funny how we celebrate her little accomplishments, (just as if she were a new baby) even the smallest of gains. She loves to take walks to the lake without a leash. She loves car rides. This summer she would jump on the boat without help just to be with the our boys. She can be stubborn if she does not want to do something, like move when she is in our bed.

We laughed the first time she chased a squirrel or when she did not know what to do when she saw a rabbit. She snores loud like a human. It melts my heart to listen to her.”