Grady Comes Home

Saturday morning I drove up to the Culpeper shelter to meet the rottie, Jingles. He had been surrendered by the owners along with a female lab who had already gone to another rescue. The rottie was very scared and the woman told me that he had taken a week to come around and be friendly with the staff. When she brought him out I could see that he was still scared of the unknown (me), but he was happy and friendly with the staff. I took his leash and we walked around a bit, both indoors and outside. There's a large fenced area there adjacent to the shelter and we went into it but I was not inclined to let him off leash because I wasn't at all sure I could get him back.

I went to the van and got out a bag of treats and we sat on a bench outside the shelter. I fed him the treats. He was reluctant at first, but these were pretty tasty treats so he tried one and decided that they were ok. He took them from me very gently, using just his tongue.

There is a cat in the office and we met him. The dog was interested but I kept him on leash and he wasn't really pulling on the leash to get at the cat. I wasn't sure how to read it, but it certainly didn't seem that he had a strong prey drive, just curiosity.

I brought him home, obviously, and we are calling him Grady because Jingles is just a ridiculous name for a rottweiler. He's intact and underweight, but both of those conditions are easily remedied.

They told me that he had been good with other dogs at the shelter but he was scared and overwhelmed being in there. He had reacted badly to one particular man who came by him one day but otherwise had been fine with people. He was fine with me and he clearly loved the woman who worked there. Generally speaking, all it takes to win a rottweiler's love and trust is to feed them a few times and give them no reason to fear you.

I put him in the newcomer's kennel by himself for the day because we went off to the Virginia Craft Brewer's Festival at Devil's Backbone Brewery in the afternoon. We will work on further trust building and introductions with other dogs starting on Sunday.