365/351 - Ol' Rusty

This is Rusty. Rusty use to live next door to my in-laws in a backyard full of dogs just like him. They were a wild pack of dogs that some idiot person kept in the backyard with an electric fence, and sometimes would dump food out the back door for them. There was much in-breeding and new puppies were born all the time. Rusty was from one of the last litters born before the idiot person decided to move out. All of the other dogs were moved..I don't know how, and I don't know where. But Rusty got loose and would not come to any person to be handled. Instead he hung out under the front porch of the only home he is ever known, which was now empty. After a few attempts to capture him the idiot person was talking about leaving out poison. Well, my in-laws could not abide by that so they slowly, but surely coxed Rusty into their big back yard.

Now, Rusty has a dog house to sleep in. Toys to play with. A big yard to run in..with no electric fence. He has chickens to wrangle (with a fence separating them). He has food. He has water. He even ha a deck with a ceiling fan to help keep him cool. He has other dogs around that don't want to beat up on him. Rusty, for the first time in his life, has a home.

But poor Rusty has been neglected by that idiot person and so he is very shy around people. None of us has been to touch him. The few times my mother-in-law even came close to touching him, Rusty bolts away as if he's been shocked. The only reason I got a picture of him laying down like that is because it was just me and him on the back deck and I was way on the other side sitting on the ground. If I had tried to scoot closer he would have moved away from me. He follows us all over the yard and will come up on the deck while people are outside as long as we are all sitting down. He is very curious about the other dogs and how they are not afraid of us. I hope someday soon we will win him over. Because those ears are begging to be scratched.