About Hope

In early February 2018, a home renovator found a female dog that was neglected and near death at a house where he was working. The animal was friendly enough, but quite emaciated. She was under 30 lbs., and was small enough to be mistaken for an Italian greyhound. She would drink, but wouldn't take food, despite her condition. We got the call. The owner surrendered the dog to us, and we took it to our local emergency vet, who determined that it had swallowed some object that was blocking her digestive tract. We were told that we had about 48 hours before she would be too weak to tolerate the surgery that she required. It was an easy decision. The dog had surgery to remove the blockage. And because it was convenient, she was spayed as well. A vet tech suggested that we name her 'Hope'. She had an excellent recovery, considering her weakened condition, and was discharged from the hospital in late February. Since then, she has gained weight (we don't know how much, but at least you can't count her ribs anymore). We discovered that she was not house-trained, but by using a crate and managing her daily schedule, we consider that we've solved THAT problem. Hope is a VERY affectionate dog. She does best late at night, before her bedtime, when she will alternate between licking your hands and face and curling up at your feet. She will also obey simple commands, such as 'sit' in the house, as well as 'stop' and 'cross' at street corners. But as her strength returned, we discovered that she has a great deal of energy, and is dominant to other dogs, especially smaller dogs. She will also try to jump on humans, a habit that we have been unable to break her of. In addition to this domination behavior, she pulls on the leash during her walks, and will not heel when other dogs are present. In spite of all these things, every now and again, she will walk with a pack of dogs without incident, showing her potential as a great pet. We also notice that she is a bit orally fixated, perhaps because she was not weaned properly. This is likely how she got into trouble to begin with. We are at the point now where Hope will ignore cloth and other non-food objects ALMOST of the time, but even after four weeks, we are not confident that we have resolved this very important issue. But let's be honest. Perfect dogs, however you define that, don't get neglected and abused. Hope is a wonderful dog, and wants to learn how to behave, but she came to us 'broken', and we've only done part of the job to fix her. She needs a strong, experienced leader to bring out her best qualities. We think that she will do best in a home where she's the only dog, with a family who are aware of her past, and will commit to spending the time and effort to finish what we've started.

Hamilton County
Cincinnati, Ohio 45207