About Tesla

Adopt Tesla! SHE NEEDS AN ONLY DOG HOME! No I'm not a GIANT but I have a GIANT HEART!! Tesla is a 3 year old Dalmatian in search of the perfect forever family! We rescued Tess from a home where she was not getting what she needed to succeed. She had a bad fight with the household mini Schnauzer and was banished to the back yard where she lived for over a year as an outdoor dog. She was grossly overweight, near 80 pounds when we got her as well. She's been on a strict diet since arrival, has a wonderful loving foster home in Tulsa, Oklahoma and has gotten down to 67 pounds, but still needs to continue to lose a few - with a goal of 55 pounds. She has also spent the last 2 weeks in training with our Behaviorist at Wright Way Canine Center so we could appropriately test her skills, limits and socialization with other dogs. She definitely needs a secure fence that is not chain link - this girl can climb! What we found was that she truly has a lot of trauma in her that will honestly just take time to overcome. She will NOT do well in any home with a small dog, we truly believe that whatever trauma occured has stuck with her and she just will not likely let her issues with small dogs go. Yet, she did good after some warming up with a dog of like size! She played and learned it was fun and we believe with proper introductions, slow transition that she can live with another dog of similar or larger size. Her skills need work, leash training is a big work in progress but if you go slow with her, she will perform. She got worse when we tried a Starmark collar, literally fighting back and flopping down on the ground. Her eye contact during training is very poor as well - which tells us that she had a brute person in her past. If you try to force her to sit or do a down, she will literally fight you and say NO! We listen to our dogs!! So we immediately took her back to the slip leash and we guided her gently, allowing and urging her to make the choice herself to do the commands we asked of her. Tess needs a gentle handler with a lot of patience that she can build trust, confidence and have fun with training. She definitely has the smarts! She definitely has the ability, but this girl needs 100% force free training to truly come out of this fearful trauma she once endured. The great things are she is a ton of fun, she is a high energy breed that would likely be amazing to do agility with, allowing her to build confidence and burn energy using her athletic abilities and intelligence of the Dalmatian. She has been reported to not like children and even had some aggressive behaviors towards the grand children in the previous home. Most dogs can be desensitized to be around children in public but we have yet to have this opportunity to test her. This we feel it best that she be in a home with children over 14 years of age. From Tess's foster mom: Tess is a very sweet, loving, softest and loyal girl to whoever her person(s) is. When we first got Tess, she was in pretty bad condition from living outside for 1.5 years and was being fed food she was clearly allergic too, resulting in terrible skin issues and hot spots. Once we got her inside and the right food (Wellness Complete Whitefish) her hot spots cleared right up and she loved laying on her bed, snuggling on the couch, or even thinking she was a lap dog trying to cuddle up. She is crate trained, and spent the last several months sleeping in her crate at night and crated sometimes during the day. She might whine for just a little while, but will fall asleep and wait for you in the morning to let her out. She loves early morning cuddles, playing fetch with squeaky toys, eating carrots as treats and watching for squirrels out the window. Tess also watched plenty of workouts by my side on the bike or treadmill, so if you are an indoor/at-home workout person, she watched through the windowed door to cheer you on! She loves going for walks and does well leaving other dogs and humans alone on our walks. Whenever she is on a leash, she is very well behaved, won't even bark at other dogs or humans - she might just pause to look at them for a second, but will follow your lead when you are ready to move on. She also gets lots of compliments by passersby about how cute she is She does, as most dogs, want to smell just about everything in sight! She's timid with new people, but once you let them in the house and allow her to sniff around, she'll gladly play fetch and receive pets from anyone new. It might take a few times for her to get comfortable with someone, so don't be surprised if she tucks her tail the first few minutes of a new interaction. Tess comes from a hard life, which means she does have some special requirements for her living situation. Tess would do best with someone with no other small dogs, but could do well with another dog her size (55-60+ lbs). Although I never saw Tess around kids, her previous owners mentioned she

Oklahoma County
Tuttle, Oklahoma 73089