Graduation day for unwanted dogs

Have a Heart Humane Society is proud to announce that two of our dogs have graduated from training classes at Thunder Paws Dog Training.

Rudy is one of the “Magnificent 7” dogs, they were dumped in an equipment yard on South St. early in the spring 2014. Rudy, his mom, brother and four sisters, were rescued by Have a Heart volunteers and several local pet lovers who responded to a Facebook post about the dogs. Rudy’s foster mom, Chelley Kitzmiller, enrolled Rudy in Thunder Paws agility classes along with his brother Zeke. Both dogs showed great potential for being agility athletes. Toward the end of 2014, Zeke was adopted by the owner of Thunder Paws, Rosemary Evans, and Rudy was adopted by Janet Devine. Both women wanted a small dog to run the course with them and compete.

After adopting Rudy, Janet continued classes, taking Rudy to Puppy Training and to Novice Obedience. Part of Rudy’s training included the down command, which he refused to do over and over. Then, one day, Janet discovered that Rudy would do the down command on the pad on top of his crate. So she put the pad on the floor and he obeyed the command. Janet now calls the pad his “Magic Carpet”. It seems that some dogs don’t like to their butt or their belly on cold or hard surfaces. Rudy will eventually have to learn to go down without his “Magic Carpet”, but for now Janet is letting him have his way. On Thursday evening, February 26, 2015, Rudy graduated from Novice Obedience class and earned his AKC Canine Good Citizen Certificate.

We are also proud of our girl Tammy, a wild little Chihuahua mix puppy that was a Tehachapi street stray. We took her in nearly a year ago. For months now Tammy has been overlooked by potential adopters because she was unruly, so her foster Steven Huecker, a Bear Valley resident, agreed to take her to puppy training class at Thunder Paws. Tammy did well from the beginning and learned various commands that turned the unruly little pup into a well behaved dog. Tammy graduated from puppy training class and earned her AKC Star Puppy test certificate on February 26.

We want to thank Janet and Rosemary for seeing the potential in two little unwanted dogs and adopting them, and thank Steven for being a fabulous pet foster and taking Tammy through her classes and home training. Tammy is now ready to be adopted into a forever home and we will not worry about her being returned for being unruly!