About Bruno

I am in a bit of a desperate situation with a Heeler Mix named Bruno, here in Oklahoma. Bruno is around 2.5 years old and has been living in a kennel at a vet's office for over a year and a half. Unfortunately, recently he has begun getting mouthy with the vet staff - it is playful, excitable mouthing (he is desperate for human interaction) but nonetheless the mouthing can get hard and he has torn clothes/left some slight bruising. Now the vet has said he can no longer stay there and the rescue says they have nowhere else for him to go and plan on euthanizing him. I have been a dog trainer/behavior specialist for almost 20 years and have a ton of experience working with dogs that have pretty severe behavior problems. I can confidently say that Bruno is not a dog whose behavior warrants euthanasia in any way - I honestly can't believe that I'm having to write an email like this about him of all dogs. The mouthing behavior itself is actually very easy to stop (he doesn't do it to me at all anymore) and I really don't foresee it being an issue in a home environment (I probably wouldn't put him with little kids though). He is good with most dogs - he can be slightly on-leash reactive but I have seen him off-leash around dozens of dogs in fairly big groups - every once in a while he seems to not love a certain dog but for the most part he has done great. Probably not a great dog park or daycare dog though. He is generally ok with new people, mostly disinterested until he gets to know you - sometimes he gets nervous around people in public but I take him to parks, and Lowes and Petsmart frequently and he does great. He is fairly noise sensitive - particularly around machinery and sudden noises. I don't know about cats - he doesn't react strongly to the cat at the vet at all, but is pretty persistent towards squirrels. Overall Bruno is actually a pretty easy dog - a few quirks but nothing major.

Oklahoma County
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma