By Nick Iordanis

TAGS foster home coordinator and volunteer Sue Montgomery received a word from the Whitby pound that they had a dog who has gone unclaimed and who's time was running out.

Boomer caught Sue's eye in part because of his brindle handsomeness. Usually, brindle dogs are adopted fairly quickly because they are relatively novel and people like the look of them. This is one of the sad realities of rescue. Unfortunately, humans choose their mates by considering "coat colour," conformation and cuteness. Why would they choose their pets any differently?

 

Boomer on the day he arrived at TAGS

After passing a behavioural assessment, Sue arranged to take Boomer out of the pound and into a foster home. A foster family who had a dog of their own named Trooper, a Lab mix adopted from TAGS who was very tolerant of others, got along great with Boomer. However, Boomer did not get along quite so well with all other dogs, we learned, particularly alphas.  

After a long winter, his foster home brought Boomer to the TAGS dog park for a run, which he loves. While quite comfortable as part of a well-experienced dog family and with Trooper, who is non-confrontational, Boomer was overwhelmed at the dog park. While nobody knows exactly what triggered it, a few dogs, including Boomer, went after another timid dog.

It is not known if Boomer was the dog who actually caused the damage (there were other dogs involved), the victim suffered a deep cut on her neck and had to be stitched up by a vet, resulting in a hefty vet bill (paid for by TAGS). Luckily, TAGS volunteers were able to disperse the group before any further damage was to occur.

That fall, Boomer's foster home moved out of the area and could therefore no longer foster him. Since Boomer now had a reputation for being a bit wild, foster homes were not exactly lining up to foster him. So the foster coordinators decided to move him to Brooklin Pet Care, a boarding facility that has offered to foster dogs for TAGS.

Being in a facility full of dogs, Boomer was exposed to many different types of dogs and was also exercised so thoroughly, he was eating six, sometimes seven, heaping cups of food a day! One of the reasons why I volunteer  is to spend time with dogs, so I took it upon myself to stop by Brooklin once a week and take Boomer out for the day for some socialization.

Nick & Boomer - lots of socialization and play was the key

It took a few weeks for Boomer to begin to trust me enough. And spending time with him, I began to hypothesize what caused this dog to be so reserved around people. I liked to say that Boomer was very "body conscious"--he really disliked people looking at him. This led me to believe that Boomer had been some sort of guard dog or had been chained to the side of a garage for the first few years of his life, but nobody knows except him.

After just a few trips to the vacant dog park, Boomer became my shadow, and by that I mean, he became seriously bonded to me. More than anything though, Boomer LOVED chasing the ball and loved our subsequent trips to the dog park to do so. Since Boomer didn't like other people looking at him, I decided to use his love of the dog park to my advantage.

Once I became confident that Boomer trusted me, I started to bring him to the dog park when I knew other people would be there, thereby tying a positive stimulus, the dog park, to a negative stimulus, humans who look at Boomer.

Since we didn't know exactly what was going to happen, and because of the dog-injury incident  while Boomer was present, Boomer was required to wear a muzzle, which he didn't seem to mind. The muzzle prevented him from picking up the ball, which was a bit of a blessing in disguise because he then had to occupy himself with some of the other stimuli in the park, namely humans.

Another side benefit of bringing Boomer to the populated dog park was the free advertising. Other adopters, fosters, even just people driving by got to see this handsome striped dog. It didn't take long for Boomer to realize these humans are really just people who can throw my ball! And with some patience, and making the dog park as positive an experience as possible, I watched as Boomer became a very happy-go-lucky dog. It is difficult to explain my joy at seeing Boomer approach another dog or person trying to entice play. 

When Boomer was promoted on the  TAGS Tails blog, he got an incredible amount of interest. On the TAGS Facebook page, where our featured dogs normally get anywhere from 200 to 500 views, Boomer was getting more than 2,000. As a result of this, we did get a few applications, but nothing that we thought was suitable for Boomer. The last thing we wanted to do was set him up to fail.

So we continued to wait. Then in April 2013, we got an application from a family who wanted to look at a number of dogs. The family had an 18-year-old son who was going to be the main owner of the dog. One of the adoption coordinators suggested I bring Boomer to the park that day to meet the family since they were open to meeting several dogs.

Sure enough, the family requested a home visit with Boomer. Of all the dogs they met that day, he was the one they felt a connection with. On the home visit, I was very encouraged by how comfortable Boomer felt in their home, even lying down on the dog bed, which, believe it or not, is pretty rare during an HV. I really thought the family was a great fit for Boomer, mainly because he had a young adult to bond with. The family was also very understanding that Boomer was not perfect and was excited by the opportunity to rescue him.

Boomer was officially adopted after a weeklong extended visit, on Saturday April 20, 2013. And he is now a much-loved family member--something, it seems, he had really been wanting to be!

If you are interested in how Boomer is spending his days in his new home, click here to read the part 2 of his story (from the adoptive family's point of view).