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.
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 sweet, young puppy!!!
I want to preface this with now that Ruby has been with us for just under a month, 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 at first as she decompresses and learns to trust in her new home. When she first came home with us, she was very shy and a bit fearful when it came to human touch (i.e. she would run from us if we tried to pet or touch her) but otherwise she’s actually been quite confident from the beginning. 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!)
Just 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 just stopped trying to pet her. You just have to ignore her until she is comfortable and let her come around to you on her own... and boy has she come around and she loves us now!!
So we basically 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.
After really a week, she started to slowly trust us (seeing our dogs trust us helped her a lot too!) and now she sits on our laps, insists on giving us face kisses, and snuggles with us.
Now that she has been with us for just about a month, and has become comfortable with me and my house, I have just now started taking her outside to our yard to work on potty training. Luckily she is potty-pad trained, so up until now she was just going on a potty pad.
Since our yard is something new (and cold) we are starting by bringing her out with our dogs and just giving her treats outside then letting her go back inside. This way she will start associating something good with our yard. (We crate trained her SO easily with treats and now she RUNS into her crate for treats so I know this will work well for her!). Once the yard doesn't feel so new and scary, we will then work on potty training her out there.
Her adopter should expect to just need to go slow and use potty pads for the first few weeks with her as well, as she learns to be comfortable in your home and around you. She is such a sweet dog and worth that adjustment period!!!
Food is absolutely the way to her heart. She is VERY food motivated.
While she is crate trained now, she was not at first so for the first 2 weeks I didn't crate her at all because I didn't want to stress her out. During that time, she would stay loose in the living room with my dogs and does perfectly fine left loose. I would check the camera when I left her, and she would just be hanging 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).
I'd love to see Ruby be adopted by someone who understands that earning trust takes time for a dog who has been mistreated. 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. But not totally necessary! Just be patient and give her space for the first week or so and then the change will be amazing! I mean she turned into a normal, happy, playful puppy! And once you see that change, it's 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/ .
