The secret lives of rescued pets

It was two years ago today that Chelsea and Jackson came to live with us.  For the first few months, they lived under the sofa, and Chelsea even tried to starve herself to death.  As they gradually came out of their shells, however, they gave us hints about life with their former owner.  The first time Chelsea voluntarily approached me, it was because I’d thrown a blanket over my lap while I sat on the sofa.  All of a sudden, there was Chelsea, sitting on my lap.  She barely tolerated me otherwise, but she had some positive memory of laps and blankets.  Chelsea also loves potato chips, and will come running if she hears the crinkle of a chip bag.  She’ll drool into the bag if it’s left open, and she likes to eat little crumbs of chips, all different flavours.  Both Chelsea and Jackson are enamoured of plastic bags, which makes me wonder if they were given crinkly things to play with.  They also both dislike being picked up and held.  My vision of their former owner is an older woman, perhaps sickly, who sat covered with a blanket, eating potato chips.

Derek is another rescued cat, and we don’t know much about him officially except that he wandered into someone’s house in Utah one day.  Unofficially, I know Derek was raised with very large dogs.  He treats the dogs as if they don’t exist, and will even smack Dante, our Anatolian shepherd, on the nose if he gets too pushy.  Derek is so comfortable around dogs and cats that he must have once been part of a menagerie.

Frank was the big, bruised tomcat we found on our front porch.  He was very nippy and bitey at first, but now he’s a huge cuddle-bunny who loves to be kissed and held like a baby.  He’s not feral, so someone once loved him—as a kitten, someone was very kind to him, and he’s grown up loving people.  I wish the person who loved him had seen that he was neutered and kept indoors, but perhaps he accidentally escaped.

Phoenix is the shih-tzu we adopted from the local animal shelter.  Although she was dirty and crusty and full of infections when we adopted her, she immediately jumped into the car and sat in the front seat when we drove her home for the first time.  When we opened the door to our apartment and took her inside, she ran into the bedroom and jumped onto the bed.  Her former owner must have taken her for car rides, and even let her sleep on the bed—I wonder what happened to that person?  Phoenix also does a really cute thing where she stands on her hind legs and begs for treats, and again, I’m sure that was either taught or reinforced.

Our least-revealing adoptees are our birds.  None of our rescues talk, so they can’t divulge the secrets’ of their former owners.  The birds will never help solve a murder or lead us to buried treasure!

It’s been a lot of fun for us to try to unravel the mysteries of our pets’ earlier lives - we never know when another surprise will reveal itself!  If you have any dog, cat, or bird rescues, have they ever done anything, or acted in a certain way, to give you clues about their past?

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 01/06 at 08:37 PM

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  1. Coco, my sweet Shih Tzu, is a rescue that came to our home when he was about 2 years old.  He is a friendly happy guy..most of the time.  But he has the strangest fears.  A cough or even worse.. a sneeze will have him tuck his tail and run in fear.  So many, many times I have wondered how these fears ever developed.  He is gentle and affectionate so it is obvious that he knew a caring person.. but why is he so terrified when a person coughs or sneezes.  Over the past two years we have been able to desensitize him to some degree.. but the fears are still there.. only not quite as dramatic.

    Posted by Simply Coll  on  01/07  at  08:17 AM

  2. How fascinating. Our current ones (Mad-Kitty and Molly-dog) were basically born together on a farm. Mad preferred to hang out with the 13 GSD puppies (she was the size of one of their paws) rather than be with the other cats on the quiet porch. We fell for her and took her along with our new puppy. She’s mostly dog at this point. I get a giggle at the thought of them being with other people with all their current ideosyncracies. As much as I adore them, though, let’s hope that never happens.

    Posted by Diana  on  01/07  at  10:58 AM

  3. we adopted a 1 year old rescued staffy last month and we’ve been trrying to figure out her past.  she’s really loving and well behaved.  she’s great with small children and all people.  she knows basic commands (and shake-a-paw).  somebody must have loved her and treated her well.  she also has a lot of fears (water, belts, even her own poop when my fiance tries to pick it up at the park) and she’s VERY aggressive towards other dogs so we think she was also trained as a fighter 8(.  we’re getting her private obedience lessons and hoping that one day she’ll be able to be social with other dogs but that may never happen.

    Posted by shawna  on  01/07  at  06:00 PM

  4. Our German Sheperdess called Critter was rescued from a split couple when she was about 3 months old… after the man had left her the woman was taken away in a white jacket with long arms if you get my meaning. And the animal ambulance found a starving puppy who didn’t even had a name and was afraid whenever somebody raised a hand towards her in menace. You couldn’t pick her up because that would render her crazy with fear. You couldn’t throw something at her that was not a ball or a toy because she would be really scared then. At dog-school you couldn’t correct her or treat her even the slightliest roughly, I had to train her by voice (luckily I have a commanding voice inherited from my mother and late grandmother !) because she would howl with fear if you dared treat her with force (no yank at the leash for that one… when an instructor showed me “how to do it” she screamed like a pig being murdered and left the instructor shame-faced. It didn’t help that my momma was a fellow instructor and had told him to let me be because she knew I was experienced enough - heck, she let me handle her dogs before I had my own !).
    Critter was cute and lovable and grew into a formidable friend who would gradually forget her fears and even protect me at times. She crossed the Rainbow Bridge last October after a full 11 years of happiness with us and our felines who were her puppies. (One of our cats has been mourning ever since, he lost a lot of weight, and is only recently coming back around… he loved her so much… I have pictures of him tenderly grooming her on her last night.)
    I lived alone with my dog for some 6 years and then met the one who is now my lifemate. Ever since he came to live with us we noticed something strange about Critter… he would play too roughly with her and she would suddenly panic. His voice would be angry and she would cringe.
    So… what can we deduct from her behaviour both as pup and as adult ? Our beloved sweetling had been hit, kicked, hurt when she was defenseless. The man must have been very rough with the poor pup, thrown her about and manhandled with too much force. The woman must have hit her, thrown things at her, starved her (Critter was obsessed about food).
    And yet she grew into a most sweet dog, trusting of people, an enormous heart overflowing with love and friendship. I’ll never forget her, and I curse her first masters still.

    Posted by Babeth  on  01/08  at  03:55 AM

  5. Lets see…

    We’ll start with Jaxsun, our Siberian Husky. He’s very collar shy so I imagine someone was quite rough with him when he was younger (he came to us at approximately 6 years old. July will mark his 4th year with us) and will growl at me if I try to grab his collar. He also is very shy of having his rump touch. If you do, his ears go back and he spins around trying to see what you’re doing. I envision someone slapping his rump as punishment. The strangest thing about him is he hates to be outside. If I put him on the run, within five minutes he howling to come back in. He whines and barks and jumps at the door. He hates being outside unless we’re walking together. I imagine he was left on the run for long periods of time.

    Jaxsun loves to sit on the couch with us. He will squish between us or, if Wolf’s not home, will sit in his spot. He loves to have belly rubs and will eat just about anything. He eats his dinner with us (actually, every meal) and has to have the last bite of any sandwich I’m eating. He loves bones and pig rolls/ears, but toys baffle him. He has no idea how to play. I suppose no one every played with him when he was a puppy and we’ve never been able to get him to do play with us.

    Caesar, our cat who just passed, loved sitting on my lap when I put a blanket on, just like your cat. He was all about sitting around and being pet. He would tell me when it was time to go to bed with a cranky meow around 9p. If I didn’t come to bed, or came home late, he would just stare at me, boring holes into my body with his feline eyes, until I came to bed.

    He totally knew the sound of the can opener and would come running from any corner of the house. His story, according to the Humane Society in Nashua, was his owner, an old lady, died and he went to live with the daughter. She brought him in when he was about eight, but the shelter and the vet thought the daughter lied about his age so he was probably more like 12. August would’ve marked his fifth year here.

    Harley came from the same shelter as Caesar, on the same day. We know virtually nothing about him except that the owners were “allergic” to him. He’s a short hair, very long and lean cat, who is all about affection. I think he wanted to much attention so they brought him to the shelter. He also talks an aweful lot when he’s unhappy. Harley goes out now so he’s pretty chilled out, but when we tried to make him an indoor cat he became nightmarish with his talking, whineing, and furniture scratching.

    Harley was 3ish when we got him 5 years ago, come August. So he’s about 8 now (wow, I hadn’t thought of that!)

    Francesca was born in a barn and came to us when she was 8 weeks. Basically she lived in that barn until she came here. She’ll be 2 on St. Patrick’s Day.

    Posted by Nio  on  01/08  at  06:40 AM

  6. My Australian shepherd came from the pound when she was 8 months old.  For years she ran to the phone whenever it rang, whether she was inside or out.  She still, 10 years later, is a little perturbed if I choose to let it ring.

    I think we have to avoid reading too much into some of the things our pets do.  The same dog used to slink out of the kitchen when I opened the oven door.  No, no one ever tried to bake her.  I used to do a lot of broiling and had an overly sensitive smoke detector.  The dog assumed the smoke detector would be going off soon after I opened the oven door and left to avoid the noise.  Should she react that way at a new home (which I hope will never be necessary), someone could jump to the conclusion that she had been abused.  Not so.

    Posted by kabbage  on  01/08  at  07:01 AM

  7. When we first got Salem he used to freak out at normal household noises (water running in the sink, footsteps on a hard floor, ceiling fan running, etc). And the first time we put him on the bed (or any soft furniture, really) he was terrified. He’s gotten over all that.

    The deal with him is that he and his two brothers were brought to the rescue by a Mexican family who didn’t speak any English, so the foster person didn’t know if the cats had been theirs or if they found them abandoned somewhere. And then the foster home keeps her many foster cats outside (it’s kind of a small farm-like setup), so we assume Salem had just never spent much time, if any, in a house. He did know what to do with a litterbox, so he’d either seen one of those before or we were just really lucky. He’s still obsessed with trying to get outside, but overall has adjusted to life indoors quite well.

    He also hates it when my husband wears a hat. He’s gotten over most of them, but still flees if he sees him with a straw hat on. No idea what that’s about--maybe he just wonders why daddy grew a second head. smile

    Posted by Helena  on  01/08  at  08:11 AM

  8. Toby’s tail is bent (with the tip almost torn off), and although I can assume that it’s from birth, the way he acts about it seems like it was injured from an accident or an act of malice.  He doesn’t want *anyone* to touch it, not even the other cats, and that’s where my assumption comes from.  (Although it’s entirely possible that he just got bullied as a young kitty because of his tail, and he’s just weird about it)

    He’s also not very trusting of strangers, and during his first months here, he’d do nothing but hide whenever new people came over or something weird was going on (someone moved the furniture around, etc).  Which again leads me to believe that he was somehow hurt by the people who previously owned him, or he was unwanted and he was set loose into the world (because we found him alone near the grocery store).

    Sasha must’ve been really spoiled by her mother, because she’s so demanding and wants everything right away.  I’m not surprised if her mother always gave in because Sasha can really scream her head off whenever she wants something.

    Posted by celine  on  01/09  at  03:21 AM

  9. I agree with Kabbage. One of my cats was hand-raised (along with his brother) most tenderly by a lady who fed them home-cooked meals, and they lived with their sibs till I came and took them. Brother is a sturdy 18-pounder with an affectionate, social temperament. Bozo (20 lb) is terrified of everything. If his kibble moves while he’s eating it, he runs to hide under furniture. He also yowls loudly, occasionally, for no apparent reason and with every sign of great distress.
    If you didn’t know better, you’d think we practised live feline dissection regularly. Yet he’s never ever had anything but love and tenderness from all (except maybe the vet tech, whom he recently attacked, also for no reason, and who has now red-tagged his file. I think it means “potential murderer.")

    Posted by thepoliticalcat  on  01/11  at  02:24 PM

  10. I agree that fears/phobias can be random—after all, most of us have some irrational fear that doesn’t have a good explanation.  I think the fun, quirky habits of adopted pets are trustworthy clues about the past, though.  Like Chelsea’s love of potato chips—not one other pet (four dogs, nine cats, and six parrots) even blinks an eye when the chips come out.  Chelsea even eats them, and she won’t eat basic things like kibble and cat snacks.  It’s an interesting subject, anyway!

    Posted by Leigh-Ann  on  01/11  at  08:07 PM

  11. Hi, Leigh-Ann! It’s been awhile since I could stop by. We took in Scruffy at 10 years from a family getting divorced. She literally cringed whenever an airplane flew overhead and spent t-storms deep in the closet. All I know of her background is that she was found as a “scruffy” kitty behind a bar, during a storm and she had “lots of kittens” before finally getting fixed. She HATED car rides intensely (maybe the roaring like an airplane). She was also afraid of men sometimes. My hubby shaved his beard, and she was TERRIFIED of him for a few days. When the mgr was showing our apt without telling us, we knew something was wrong because Scruffy would be hiding in the closet when we got home instead of greeting us at the door. If we were gone overnight, she would tell us everything that happened while we were gone, at length. She was VERY vocal and prone to conversations. Poor sweety had tumors that killed her at 12. I hope we made her final years better.

    Posted by Victor Tabbycat's Mom  on  01/14  at  02:02 PM

  12. Hi Leigh-Ann,
    Thank you for this, it triggered quite a lot memories, for our own lot and the ones we’re trying to rehome (though of course, the main bulk of the mental work for them is done by Foster Mum).

    It is also heartwarming to read the comments here. SO wonderful to read about the care and love everybody gave.

    I’m smiling, and it’s the start of the weekend here. Thank you all.

    calsifer
    PS. OT: I don’t know if you remember, but a long while back, you asked about the situation for animals here in Singapore. I’ve had a few go’s at making a coherent, easy to read and understand overview post about it for you, but they always end up being overly angsty-ranty and too complicated. It’s still on my list of to-dos though, I just wish I have the time to sit down and really pound on it, instead of peck at it in between stuff.

    Posted by calsifer  on  01/19  at  04:22 PM

  13. Calsifer, I definitely remember asking you about life in Singapore, and I’d still love to read anything you put together.  It would actually be fascinating to read an overview of the animal welfare situation in other countries as well.  I know someone in the Philippines who could perhaps help with that, but I draw a blank on most other countries.  I’ll have to put the word out!

    Posted by Leigh-Ann  on  02/04  at  12:35 AM
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