This weekend we added a third moo to our pack.
Gizmo is a 1.5 year old male Cavalier and he’s very special. Gizmo is a puppy mill survivor – that means, alongside being a rescue pup, he’s also going to be a very large “work in progress” in our home. 
Up until six weeks ago, Gizmo was living in a commercial breeding facility as one of the ’stock’ – a place where dogs are bred for online pet stores and pet shops. Puppy mills, if you will. He didn’t have a name. He had a stock number. Dog # 232. Many sites/stores will tell you their puppies come from local breeders, raised in loving homes (cough Petland cough) – but they don’t. If they can’t produce the paperwork or give you the address to investigate yourself, they’re bluffing, and laws doesn’t currently exist to really penalize that fabrication. Many sellers work around this truth because they purchase store stock through puppy brokers, who purchase dogs from commercial breeders during auctions, enabling the shops and sites to claim their puppies come from healthy, loving, hobby breeders.
Gizmo’s mill is run by a woman and her two sons, producing endless breeds, and raking in salaries over $100k per year. They’ve been fined four times in recent years for neglect or abuse by the USDA and they’ve had over 103 dogs confiscated due to conditions in the past. Gizmo was born, and spent the first year plus of his life, in small wire cage, stalked atop other cages, filled to the brim with siblings and likewise. He doesn’t know human contact (and the little he does was not kind), he doesn’t know grass. He experienced so little and lived so inhumanely that he is scared of everything.
Sneezes. Movement. Cars. People going from sitting to standing. Human touch. Leashes. You name it, it’s new, and it’s frightening. He’s not my first rescue, but he is my first mill rescue, and it is an entirely different ball game. Per the experts:
“Rehabilitating a puppy mill dog is a long, slow process, and success is by no means certain. On average, it takes 6 to 8 months to see progress in the transformation. Mill dogs know nothing about being a beloved pet, or companion, or playmate. These dogs have lived in wire cages, eaten poor quality food, been forced to share their cages with many other dogs, never had the proper medical care, and have never known the human touch of affection and kindness. They are used to lying in their own excrement, and the excrement of other dogs that share the same fate. Not only will these dogs bring tremendous training challenges, they will also challenge your patience and commitment as you attempt to integrate them into your family life. Many of these dogs are shy. Many are fearful. Many will bark at, or run and hide from, the “normal” sounds of a household – the doorbell ringing, a child’s joyful squeal, the running of the vacuum cleaner, the jangling of car keys.”
The one thing he does know is other dogs – and having Emmie and Bailey has made him feel better. Being in their company, he is at ease. Much to their demise, he lives under them and where they go, he goes, what they do, he does. It’s actually helping. We can’t approach him, but if we catch him next to one of the dogs and move slow, we can pet him. He learned toys aren’t so bad (and is also learning what isn’t his to hoard – aka no, he can’t steal the bath rugs or my sock or phone…). He learned the stairs, slowly, by bribing him with treats and Emmie. He attempted the dog door. He’s a gentleman to the cats. And despite the fact his coping mechanism is to yell, growl and hide from everything new (the dishwasher, me brushing my hair, Sean making coffee, switching rooms — no joke, we spent four hours last night being barked at, full volume, endlessly… but we ignore it and he’s already lessening this morning), he’s making his own version of progress. He helped himself onto the love seat to hang with me and the dogs earlier.
He even slept on the big bed. Our best progress was made, oddly, at bed time. It was the first night in his life he slept outside of a cage (mill) or crate (rescue). He waited until he thought we were fast asleep, and then quietly got up and sniffed our faces (!!!), before settling down between us, next to Emmie. This morning, he brought Emmie a toy (who “helped” teach him how to destroy it), and he let Sean hold his food bowl, even if he grumbled the entire time.
Gizmo may never be “normal”, but we’ve decided that’s okay. He’ll get better, we’ll work harder, and he will see that life with people isn’t a nightmare. He’ll be safe. And that’s the entire point anyway, isn’t it?
I love dogs. And I love books.
