Ruby is an incredibly adorable, short legged, 1 year old, 12 pound Dachshund / Chihuahua mix. She was rescued from a dog hoarding situation in New Mexico where she lived with 30+ dogs and sadly never (until now) got treated right, loved, or shown what it means to be someone’s cherished pet. Because of that, Ruby is still learning how to be a dog — and what it feels like to be safe and loved.
Ruby must go to a home with at least one other small, social / confident dog. Ruby feels comforted, confident, and grounded when she is around other dogs, and they will be essential in helping her learn how to live in a loving home. She will not thrive as an only dog. She is more confident and happy with doggy friends around her and we want to do what is in Ruby's best interest when finding her a forever home!
Ruby's adopter should expect a bit of a slow transition as she settles into a new home and learns that she is safe and loved. But it will be well worth it when you have gained her trust and see her amazing, puppy-like personality!
From Ruby's foster:
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"Ruby is an incredibly sweet girl and once her personality comes out, you'll see that she really is just a young puppy (well, she's 1 but that's still puppy-like to me!)
I want to preface this with now that Ruby has been with us for 2 and a half weeks (and been put on an [affordable!!] anxiety medication to help her build confidence) she is a completely different dog than the one who initially came home with me! She loves me and my husband, follows me around the house, comes to the kitchen for her meals, kisses us on our faces, sits on our laps, and snuggles us at night. She just took some patience in the beginning, and had to learn that she could trust us.
Ruby will need an adopter who can be patient with her as she decompresses and learns to trust in her new home. She is shy and a bit fearful when it comes to human touch (AT FIRST) but otherwise she’s actually quite confident. From the second day home, she was playing with toys, relaxing on the couch, playing with my dogs, jumping into bed at night, getting the zoomies around the living room, and would even crawl all over us if we’re eating in front of her (she has no shame there, haha - she LOVES food!)
However, for the first about 2 weeks, Ruby was very hesitant of us and being touched by us (me and my husband). For the first 2 weeks she would run and hide under our couch when we would reach towards her. So, we stopped trying to pet her. We laid down a potty pad (so we didn't have to stress her out by trying to catch her to take her out to the yard to potty) and ignored her besides feeding her and giving her treats, and let her come around to us on her own terms.
This is the best way to do it with a dog like her, as you cannot gain trust when you do not respect her boundaries.
At this point, as I mentioned, she is much more comfortable with us touching her, however she still doesn't like to be picked up. It just freaks her out. She sits on our laps now, likes pets, and even went belly up for belly rubs the other night!!! But if we need to pick her up (we are trying not to have to until she is ready, but I needed to adjust her collar the other day) she still gets a bit nervous and will try to hide. Though she has never ever tried to nip us! She will just freeze when picked up.
Clearly some [bad word] person treated her wrong and it just breaks my heart.
I know that not petting or snuggling your new dog right away isn’t ideal, but it’s a small price to pay to make sure that she feels safe, loved, comfortable, and can learn to trust you.
Ruby needs someone who will not push her boundaries. You cannot build trust with a timid dog if you do not respect their boundaries!
We brought Ruby to the vet (at about 1 week with us) to get her some anxiety medication to help her feel better. She did pretty good at the vet!! Although uncomfortable, she allowed the doctor to examine her, listen to her heart, and check her teeth without any issues.
Food is absolutely the way to her heart. She is VERY food motivated.
As for crate training -- now she does great in a crate!!! She's very smart and trains easily since she is SO food motivated.
I tried to crate her on her first night home, but she cried and barked in the crate. Given that she had come from a dog hoarding case, I figured she had really never been alone, so I let her come sleep in my room with us and my dogs. Now every night she does sleep in bed with us and she loves it. I really actually think this helped her bond to us because even before she was comfortable with us petting her, I would wake up every morning to her snuggled against me!
So anyway, she didn't love the crate at first. However I have been trying to crate train her when I leave the house and she's taken to it SO WELL. Now, when I open the door to our spare bedroom (we call it the dog room) where the dog crates are, she runs in and goes right into her crate! She knows now that she will get a treat when she goes in. And (if crated next to my dogs also in their crates) she is comfortable and doesn't bark in the crate anymore!
While I am crate training her now, for the first 2 weeks I didn't crate her at all because I didn't want to stress her out. So at first she would stay loose in the living room with my dogs and does perfectly fine left loose. I check the camera when I leave her, and she just hangs out on the couches with the other dogs.
Our house is very dog-proof since we have so many dogs ourself and foster a lot, but if there is food she can get, she will get it. Our trash can is not anywhere the dogs can get to, but if yours is, Ruby would try I bet. So she can be left loose, as long as the house is dog-proofed! She won't chew things that are not dog toys (unless it has food inside).
Because she didn't trust me enough at first, and is still learning to be totally comfortable with me picking her up, I haven't attempted taking her outside to potty yet. We just lay down a potty pad (luckily, she is a potty pad PRO and only potties on the potty pads!) but I haven't taken her out yet. I am just being cautious because she would have 100% been a flight risk for the first 2 weeks, when she didn't totally trust me.
I just bought her an escape proof harness (just to be safe) and it gets delivered today, so I think tonight I am going to attempt to take her out in our yard for her first outing (so I can start potty training her). Even though we have a fully fenced yard, I will still be taking her out on a leash in the yard just so I can be sure she comes back inside, etc.
Telling you all of this so her adopters can expect to take the same precautions until she fully trusts you.
I'd love to see Ruby be adopted by someone who is dog-savvy; either someone with rescue dog or fostering experience, or having adopted a similar dog in the past would be great.
Most importantly though, she just needs someone who can be patient and understand that bonding and earning trust takes time. Giving her the space she needs now will allow her to feel safe and eventually blossom. And when she does, it will be incredibly rewarding."
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We'd like to place Ruby in a home where she'll get the training and stability that she needs. Positive reinforcement training promotes great behavior, bonding and confidence for a young girl whose self-esteem will fly high while she masters her skills. Training is so important in the future behaviors of every dog. It's for this reason that we're unwilling to adopt to a family that doesn't make this loving choice. Farfel's is happy to provide a list of both in-person and virtual positive reinforcement / force- free trainers in your area.
Ruby has been fully vetted, and she is in great health and up to date on her vaccines. She is spayed as well.
Farfel's Rescue is a fully foster based rescue, and offers a one week trial with every adoption. We feel that this is much more beneficial to not only the dog, but the adopter too. We believe that only getting 20-30 minutes with a dog before deciding on a lifetime commitment is not a fair amount of time to the adopter, or the dog. Therefore we give adopters one week with the dog to assure it is the right fit, and offer a full refund of their adoption fee should it not workout within the week trial.
Farfel's Rescue has been doing adoptions this way since 2005 and is thrilled to adopt out ~400 dogs each year.
If you are interested in adopting from us, please be sure to fill out our adoption application at http://farfels.com/farfels-rescue/adoption-form/ .
