Inside a Dog Rehab Center
Sept. 30, 2015 - Where do you send a dog that's unadoptable? For some dogs it's the ASPCA Behavioral Rehabilitation Center in Madison, New Jersey. There the staff, working in conjunction with the St. Hubert's Animal Welfare Center, are helping dogs with serious issues change their behavior. The dogs have come from abusive homes, and some of them were "hoarded," kept with large numbers of other animals. In one of the center's toughest cases, they came from a dog meat farm in Korea; the story of one of those dogs had avery happy ending.
Click here for a video on the dogs rescued from KoreaClick here to read more about the ASPCA Behavioral Rehabilitation Center
Transcript
NAT SOUND: We're gong behind the doors, it'll be a tight squeeze.
KRISTEN: Kaya and Robin arrived in early 2015. They came to us from Humane Society International who rescued them from South Korea.
HEATHER: And they had told us that these dogs really exhibited behavior that needed help, and we knew that the place for these dogs was going to be in the rehab center with the ASPCA
KRISTEN: The goal of this facility is to help undersocialized fearful dogs that can't be adopted, because of the severity of their behavioral problems. We also want to document what we're doing and then share what we're doing with other animal welfare organizations across the country.
KRISTEN: We started the ASPCA Behavioral Rehabilitation Center on the grounds of St. Hubert's in March of 2013, because we realized undersocialized, fearful dogs needed a place where they could get behavioral healing.
HEATHER: St. Hubert's Animal Welfare Center is really about not just taking in animals to our center but also helping to elevate the field overall, and keep animals in the homes that they already have. With our training expertise here, we were able to take animals that often other rescues or shelters were not able to take from these scenes.
KRISTEN: This is a one of a kind facility. It's unique. We're doing research, and we're working with dogs in a way that no one else has worked with dogs before.
KRISTEN: When we started working with Robin and Kaya, both of them showed severe behavioral problems. They were first at a shelter, and the shelter quickly realized that they couldn't be put up for adoption because they were so fearful. They were extreme cases. You could not get near them, you couldn't touch them. They were trembling. Even if you simply went into the kennel, they would lose control of their bladder and bowels. They were just terrified. They were terrified. These two dogs are probably two of our most difficult cases. They both progressed slowly compared to other dogs in the program. And then Robin had a break through.
TRAINER: She just licked the top of my finger!
KRISTEN: The thing that enabled us to move forward with Robin was play. When we introduced her to toys and took her to an outdoor area she suddenly started to blossom. We were very careful at first, but we were quickly able to play with her; and then get close enough to touch her. And then she discovered that petting felt good. And then we were in! So it was great to have those tools to use with her.
Kaya didn't seem to progress nearly as quick as Robin did. She simply could not behave. She was so terrified that she was shut down all the time. Over the past few days, Kaya has actually made even greater progress. And she started to show social behavior toward me. She'll wag, she started to wag. And she gave me a lick on the arm yesterday. And it was-- it was a wonderful moment!
KRISTEN: We are so surprised that we have been as successful as we have been. Given how severe the behavior problems were in the dogs coming into this program, we thought gee I hope we can help 50-60%, but it's been more like 80-90%. We've been thrilled that these dogs have been able to change as much as they have.
TEXT ON SCREEN: Robin was adopted in August 2015.
