by Renee Morgan

Created on: November 06, 2008   Last Updated: January 07, 2009

To help an aggressive rescue dog is a tricky thing. The good part about aggressive rescue dogs is that the rescue center will not released him if they feel that he will not be safe to human life. Never bring an aggressive rescue dog into an environment in which he will be in contact with small child or many strange people. Remember, this is a rescue dog and you do not know his entire history.

I took in a rescue dog from a woman who knew his history. It took a lot of hard work and patience to get him to take to my sons. This was because he once belonged to an aggressive man whom beat his wife and the dog. After the man would beat them, he would leave the house and the wife and dog would lick each other wounds. The wife snuck off and gave the dog away in fear that the husband would kill him, for the dog had, became very protective of the wife. The dog was a German shepherd mixed with Doberman Pincher.

When I drove him home, just he and I, he sat in the front seat with his head in my lap. Upon arriving to his new home, I called into the house and told my sons to go to their rooms, close the doors and not to come out until I tell them to. When I opened the front door, the dog went straight into my room. He lay down beside my bed where he slept the rest of the night. The next morning after the boys where gone to school I took him out walking around our farm. I let him roam all day until it was time for the boys to come home. When the boys came home, I had placed him in the pen and waited until the boys got to the house from the road.

When the boys made it to the house, I had each of them to hug me and to give me something of theirs' from their backpacks. While we stood there, the dog charged the fence and growled at the boys. I then had the boys to go into the house and I went into the pen with the dog. I sat on the ground and placed the boys' items in my lap and the dog placed his head there. Then one at a time, I called the boys out and introduced them to our new family members. I did this so that the dog could learn the boys' scents. I held his head as each came into the pen one at a time and rubbed and talked to him. After several days of this, he became the protector of my children and me for eight short years.

He would never let strangers in the yard, he would walk the children to there bus and go the bus stop and walk them to the house. Whenever he was not in the pen, he would sleep under the house and would get up and sit on the step whenever he got up in the night. He would not go back under the house until he knew we were back in bed. Sometimes I think that he loved us more than we loved him.

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