Bear’s story
Bear came into our care in 2023. After being in our care for a while, we found out that Bear had spent a lot of time before coming to us living outside in a garden. He was very under socialised and didn’t give off the best first impression to say the least. He was a big dog with an even bigger bark.
We quickly made friends with him as he soon realised we were nice and once he did know you and accepted you into his friends circle, that was it, he’d puddle to the ground and lie by your feet. He also gave the BEST cuddles!
We then started to get Bear more socialised with new people and we’d stand one side of a gate with him and let 2 of our volunteers, Angie and John approach him to say hello on the other side. Bear would woof the place down and jump about, but each time, he’d settle down a bit more and started to take treats through the gate and sit nicely. We could see that Bear was trying really hard to make friends and let them in and so the time came for Bear to be unleashed! We met Angie and John in our orchard and that was it. Bear was on the floor having tummy tickles with his new friends.
Bear had a couple of visits during his stay with us but due to his rather noisy first impression, second visits sadly didn’t happen. We needed someone to see past it and to do the same as our volunteers and make friends slowly, at Bears pace.
Then one day, a couple named Veronica and Howard, who have adopted former residents Besty & Jeff wanted to meet him. They came and did exactly as we advised and met Bear through the gate. They had all the time in the world to let Bear get used to them. We did this over a few weekends before Bear then started to show the same signs that he wanted to be friends and so off into our orchard we went where he was all over them. Friend status achieved. A few more weeks of visits and meets with 2 of their other dogs and Bear was ready to head off on his home trial. One of the current dogs was a little unsure of Bear to start with but slow introductions in the home was all they needed to eventually make friends.
We’d like to say a huge thank you to Veronica and Howard who, during all their adoptions of our dogs, have been absolutely amazing and they’ve given 3 of our big dogs a home, that would have struggled to find one, but their commitment and dedication to their dogs is outstanding.
We hope you all enjoy many more happy years together, Veronica, Howard, Cosmo, Besty, Jeff, Max & Bear. 💙
