The poor pup Rose has been through many hectic events in her life, and she recently spent more than four years practically on death row. The scared and timid pup recently went through a trauma after a burglary, and out of fear, she bit two people who were coming cornering her while she was trying to escape.
Even though Rose had never hurt anyone before and is anything but a dangerous or aggressive dog, she would have to be euthanized because she was ‘mean’ and ‘vicious’.
Her situation didn’t look good at all, but luckily, people continued fighting for her.
Rose’s story begins in 2013 when she was adopted by Glorianne Lagnese. The woman first met Rose thanks to friends who took her in, because the pup could no longer stay at the shelter. Rose has minimal training and because she’s a black pup (which have a much harder time of finding a new home and getting adopted), the group was afraid that the shelter would put her down.
“They were worried that she was going to get put down due to lack of training and because she is a black dog. So they took her out, hoping they could make it work with their other dogs.” the woman told The Dodo.
However, the group of friends quickly realized that they wouldn’t be able to give Rose the attention she deserved because they had too many other pups to care for. That’s when all of them suggested that Rose would stay with Glorianne permanently since they already have a special bond and get along really well.
“But it was a bit much, and they asked me to babysit for her. We had her at our house a lot, then a few overnights. She fit in so well … so they asked if we wanted to keep her.”
Because of her lack of training and time at the shelter, Rose was still a timid and fearful pup.
Glorianne has always said that Rose is ‘a good dog’, but she knows that Rose still needed some time to get used to her environment at home and to relax. For example, she has a very low self-confidence level and is often scared.
“Sometimes she’d hear a noise in the house and she’d run away and hide,” the woman recalls.
She always gets along incredibly well with other people and pets, and children absolutely adore her.
Slowly but surely, Rose started to make some progress.
After a while, the pup felt more confident and wasn’t as scared or timid as before.
That all changed, however, when a burglar decided to enter the house almost one year after Rose was adopted.
The burglar let all of the dogs loose, and Rose didn’t know what to do.
Rose was running on the streets and a number of neighbors were trying to help. They tried to catch all of the dogs that were loose, but Rose panicked and was extremely scared.
In a frightening and extremely hectic moment, Rose then lightly bit two people who were cornering her, because she thought that they had bad intentions.
“It was in a condo complex, and they’d cornered her to try and contain her, and she got scared,” Glorianne says. “People that she didn’t know were surrounding her, and she had nowhere to go.”
The bites weren’t severe, but the damage had already been done. Some of the neighbors then called the police, which then informed officers from a local animal control center.
Rose’s owner then was told that she would need to spend ten days at the shelter.
She did not yet realize, however, that Rose would be put on death row shortly after.
“I said, ‘OK, here’s the dog,’ because I didn’t realize that I could have said something else,” she recalls. “I handed her over, following directions, and they said, ‘Ten days.’”
After those ten days, Glorianne was expecting to see welcome her four-footer back home again, but that didn’t happen. Instead, animal control officers told her that she would have to be put down.
“She’s a sweet dog, and I didn’t see why she should get killed because she nipped somebody,” Glorianne said. “I decided that I wanted to fight for her, and that’s what we did.”
Luckily, the woman wasn’t planning on giving up on her pup. She then enlisted attorney Thom Page, who has plenty of experience dealing with similar cases. The lawyer worked pro bono and fought hard to make sure that Rose could return home and would be saved from a lethal injection.
The whole process ended up being a complicated mess and after months, the case was transferred to the federal level.
In the meantime, Rose spent her days all alone at the shelter, sitting locked behind a fence.
The poor pup didn’t even have a bed, let alone playmates, toys or decent medical attention. The only thing she had was a metal food bowl. Every time Glorianne saw her pup with that metal food bowl in her mouth, her heart broke.
To make things even worse, the owners weren’t even allowed to touch her. She had to be locked up behind a fence at all time as if she were in jail. The pup’s scared personality made the situation even worse.
“All we could do was talk to her from a distance … and it was really hard on us and it was really hard on her. She didn’t understand why we kept leaving and why I could never pet her or get close to her or give her a treat. It was horrible.”
After four and a half years, the case was finally closed in favor of Rose.
Even though it took an almost unbearable amount of time, Rose’s life was safe once again. However, there were some conditions. Glorianne could no longer care for her and had to relinquish her ownership. Furthermore, the pup would have to be fostered by a professional dog trainer.
“I can’t believe she’s finally out,” she said. “Four years and eight months have just been torture.”
Rose has been seeing her dog trainer and is doing better now. Remarkably, the seven-year-old pup has managed to adjust quite well to her new home at Furry Friends Foster and Rescue. Glorianne has a friend who runs things in the animal organization, so she can regularly keep in touch with her canine buddy.
Right now, the plan is for Rose to stay at the animal organization for a few months while she gets some additional dog training and undergoes rehabilitation. After that, she will be put up for adoption once again.
“I want a home that is going to take her out for walks and love her and give her treats and let her sleep on the bed … and just let her be a dog, because that’s what she should have had all along,” Glorianne concluded.
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