October 25, 2022:

Max is doing great! He is calm and happy as long as we stick to his routine.

Since my oldest daughter moved out and my youngest son went off to college, it’s so apparent that Max was really meant to be with one person. He is so normal & calm and seems to be his best self.

Don’t get me wrong, He does LOVE it when the kids come home and goes absolutely crazy……running circles and figure eights around the house! But I’ve found, that as long as they’re home, he can’t calm down. He’s just so excited and has to always be checking on where they are at all times. Which in turn keeps him from being his calmest self.

I do think he enjoys and seems so happy with both scenarios and we all feel like we’ve truly rescued him.

Unfortunately, the neighbors behind us have gotten a pit bull. A couple weeks ago, when they had him off leash, he started barking so fiercely at Max through the fence, which in turn triggered Max to get aggressive. I spoke with the neighbors about Max being a rescue with aggression issues and wanting to avoid any more incidents in the future. So now we check to make sure they don’t have him out before we let Max out.

My oldest daughter and I did some reinforcing of our fence to add extra protection and to keep Max as safe as we could. We stacked brick cobblestones along the bottom of the fence which is the length of our backyard. We tried to make it look “cute” by adding pumpkins on top of many of the bricks. Well, you can only imagine what happened when Max came out and saw all the mini pumpkins…he thought they were new orange balls! He was running around the yard with them and even started to snack on one. I included a couple of pictures of him with the pumpkins.

Max is continuing to do well on the dosage of anxiety medication that we have him on.
We are good about only feeding him his dog food and a couple treats a day. We’ve started breaking his treats in quarters, as we’re trying to help him lose a couple pounds.

We will definitely keep you posted as to how he’s doing and try to update you every couple months.

October 21, 2022:

Max has been adopted! Stay tuned for an update and pictures from his new family!
Adopted September 17, 2022

June 4, 2022:

I was able to get an appointment w the Vet that was recommended. We are going next Monday, June 6th. We also need to get more heart worm and flea and tick medication. I just gave him the last of both, this month. I’m also so happy to report that the dosage of paroxetine that we’ve settled on, is working well. We’ve really noticed a difference in his behavior. He’s definitely more calm and less growly. We’ve also noticed him becoming more affectionate…..always wanting to be near us and doesn’t like when we stop petting him. Also, we’ve had a house full of guests this past week, and he really behaved well w everyone. We did prep everyone about the boundaries they needed to respect, w him. It was a very successful visit

November 16, 2021:

Max is doing well. Like many dogs and people, he thrives w routine. If his routine is off or ours is off, it effects him. Routine helps to keep him calm and happy. 

I’m looking forward to having the consult with the new behaviorist vet in December. Anxious to learn how to safely bring friends and family into our home.

September 20, 2021:

As for our sweet Max,….. he is doing well. The longer he’s with us, the more we understand him and the more he seems to understand and trust us. We are just always cautious with him and remind each other to not get too comfortable. We definitely have learned what makes him tik…… we know what he likes and what he doesn’t, what scares him and makes him feel nervous and scared, which can cause aggression. That he prefers being with one or two people at a time. The more people that are with him, the more uneasy he feels.
We know he’s happy and feels safe and secure and loved in our home. And we all love him and feel glad every day that we have been able to help him and give him a home.

July 15, 2021:

Max is continuing to do well, with the gift of time. He loves his routine and does best if we can stick to it. His favorite activities this summer include chasing his tennis ball and catching his frisbee in our backyard, followed by a run through the sprinkler.

He does like walks, and we continue to try to walk him during times where we know we won’t meet other dogs or people. This was recommended to us by our behaviorist, so as to keep him calmer and keep his adrenaline down. Because we live in a busy neighborhood, we tend to take him for his longest walks at night. He enjoys these, but we’ve discovered he is a little afraid of the dark, so he tends to walk faster and leads us home quicker than he does during his walks during the day.

The other thing we’ve discovered about our sweet Max, is that if we aren’t playing with him, he will look for any stray shoes or socks, and will sit in front of us, with it hanging from his mouth. I work in education, and this is what we call “attention seeking behavior.” Lol!! He’s lucky he’s so cute!

We’re hoping to start introducing other people to him in the near future. Right now, we are his world, and he has become very protective of us. Hoping he will make some new “people friends “ in the future. Max makes everyone in our family smile and laugh every day, and we love that he’s brought so much joy into our home

June 12, 2021:

Max is doing so well. I believe that the gift of time is helping him so much. The more time he’s with us, the more calm and secure he seems.

We do continue to give him the paroxatine. The vet called in a refill for him this week. We had some struggles with the pharmacy filling it last month, for in their system, it says we’re giving this medication to a 1 year old boy. They aren’t able to indicate in the system that it’s for a dog. But we got it straightened out today.

The vet is still trying to align her schedule with her other clients, as far as coming to do an in-home visit. I will let you know when that will end up being.

Max makes us all laugh and smile every day. We introduced him to the sprinkler in our back yard this week. I’ve never seen my son laugh so hard. We were all in tears. He was jumping and trying to grab the sprays of water …… he looked like he was dancing under the sprinkler.

May 19, 2021:

Max is doing really well. I think everyone, including Max, has gotten comfortable with each others’ routines and we really seem to be in a good place with Max as far as respecting boundaries and reading his cues. Although he seems so incredibly comfortable and more relaxed with us as time goes on. He’s definitely very attached to us, and is always by our sides.

We continue to work with the behaviorist and that is going well too. The behaviorist wants to plan a time to come and see Max.

April 4, 2021:

Max is doing really well. We are continuing to understand and learn about Max every day, as well as enjoying and loving him. We are working with a wonderful Behaviorist, who is guiding, teaching and supporting not only us, but more importantly, Max. Max loves new toys, so we can’t help but bring him one (or two), every time we go to the pet store for food. In the pictures, you can see how much he’s enjoying his new Spring lamb and bunny. He also always has the most excited and loving greetings for us, when we come home. When pulling in our driveway, we know he’ll always be watching for us out the front window of our home.

February 19, 2021:

Max is doing great! He absolutely LOVES the snow so you can imagine how happy he was, when we received 18 inches of the new fluffy stuff Monday night into Tuesday. We already had close to 20 inches on the ground, so now we are pushing 40 inches. Max loves running in the snow and burying his face in it. He’s so cute!

We did take Max to our Vet on Saturday in order to renew his prescription. He did very well at the Vet. We were quite nervous taking him, for it was the first time we had taken him somewhere with other people and weren’t sure how he’d act. We took his muzzle with us just in case. Our Vet wanted to see how he would do without it but had us bring it in should we feel he might need it. He did really well. Was very friendly and was fine with being petted and weighed, etc. We never needed to use the muzzle.

The vet had reviewed his history and we filled in with our experience with him. He felt that with his weight gain it wouldn’t hurt to increase the fluoxetine dosage a small amount. He stressed that it is still a very small dosage for a dog of this size. He also supported that it would be smart to get him into a behaviorist vet.

We haven’t seen Sara the behaviorist in a few weeks, although have been watching videos she has sent and have continued to practice with Max. I will keep you posted as we continue to work with her.

We continue to love Max, as he has become a very fun and happy part of our family

January 15, 2021:

I was just enjoying my time with Max this evening and wanted to share a picture of him.

Every late afternoon/evening, when I get home from work, the first thing he and I do is take a walk together. Then we come home and I feed him dinner. He then lays on the kitchen floor (see picture), while I cook dinner and he keeps me company.

One fun thing he does with us every night is a “dance party.” We always have Alexa playing music, and my daughter and I sometimes break out in little dance steps. He gets so excited and jumps up and puts a paw on each shoulder and dances with us. It’s the cutes thing ever. He never wants to stop, This has become a very consistent nightly routine.

This is his daily routine:
Every morning I get up between 5:00-6:00, and take him for about a half hour walk and then feed him breakfast. My daughter then takes him on another walk between 7:00-7:30, before she leaves for work. My son, who is home doing school for the year, then takes him for a third walk between 9:00-9:30 before his first class. He then plays frisbee with him in our backyard around lunch time. My daughter comes home from her school (she’s a teacher), around 2:00 for her break, and walks Max again.

He has truly become the center of our world and we all smother him with love and attention.

December 23, 2020:

(Max recently was moved to a different foster home.) Max is doing great! He seems to to have quickly settled into our home and routine. We all love him and I think he’s enjoying being the center of attention. We are spoiling him with many walks every day (5-6 / day), and have showered him with new toys and a couple new beds. When we aren’t walking with him, we are tossing toys with him and playing fetch. Lots of petting and kisses. We are looking forward to celebrating his Birthday (December 24) and Christmas with him.

December 10, 2020:

Max is doing well in his foster home and is a happy boy lately. His foster parents are still consistently working on training and conditioning with him. Max loves attention and could play and be petted all day long. He is still wary of new people and new sounds but is feeling very comfortable in his foster home with his people.

October 27, 2020:

Max is learning how to be a much happier dog. He loves his foster parents and really wants to play with his foster siblings, but they are both small older dogs and do not want much to do with him. He is very well-behaved in many ways. He can be left out of his crate and does not get into any trouble when unsupervised. He loves chewing his toys all day long and always wants to have something in his mouth.

Max’s behavior issues are improving a lot. He trusts his foster parents a lot but still does not like to be handled. He LOVES being touched, but only when he’s initiating it. Max needs to be left alone when sleeping; he is grumpy when he is woken up. Even though he still has his grumpy moments, his reactions are much tamer and he is happy most of the time now.

His trainer gave us ‘homework’ to work on, so this week we will be focusing more on taking him out in public settings and teaching him the world isn’t so scary after all, and sometimes you even get hot dog treats when you venture out and try new things!

September 8, 2020:

Max started taking fluoxetine a couple weeks ago, and we have seen some improvement but it’s hard to say exactly how much. Even before meds Max would seem to have some good days and some bad days. I have noticed Max is becoming less and less likely to react to me or my husband entering a room. When we first got Max, he would growl and/or bark as soon as he heard the noise of someone coming. From there it was usually a low growl until he realized it was one of us then he would get up and excitedly come over to us. Yesterday I came into the room while Max was sleeping. He picked his head up and looked at me and wagged his tail but didn’t feel the need to get up as soon as he saw me, so I would say that is improvement! Another positive is he seems to be getting better with noise reaction. We had an upstairs neighbor move in this weekend. He did WAY better than I thought he would, he didn’t bark once at the noises. He happily laid in his bed and played with a toy. When he would hear a noise, he would pick his head up and look around.

July 26, 2020:

Max is continually getting more comfortable in his foster home. Many sounds and situations seem new to him. He is very intrigued by the TV and dishwasher in particular. He wants to be by his foster parents all day and loves to play. He is just starting to flip over for belly rubs. Max is still struggling with fear of new noises and situations. His foster parents are working with a behaviorist to work on resource guarding he seems to have with food. Although he likes attention and wants to be close to his foster parents, he sometimes gets grumpy and doesn’t want to be touched. Max will continue working with the behaviorist as well as see a vet for a more comprehensive exam to rule out any medical reasons for his behavior. Max has championed ‘lay down’, ‘go in your kennel’, ‘sit’, and ‘shake’. He has also gotten better about not play biting and will always go find his rope instead of trying to chew on his foster parent’s arms. We are working on drop it, leave it, come, and leash manners.

July 11, 2020:
Max is starting to feel more comfortable in his foster home. He hasn’t met the resident dogs yet. He wants to play all day! He is seeing a behaviorist for resource guarding. He is responding well to training and is a very fast learner. He is warming up to being petted and will back his way up to you for back scratches.

Max seems fearful of new people and noises at first, but is learning that people are nice. At the vet, he barked at all the workers at first but quickly learned they were his friends when they gave him treats. The next day, he saw a neighbor out in the yard and instead of barking he just sat and asked for treats. The vet said that Max has a fever so we will get him feeling better and continue working on training.

July 9, 2020:
Max is in his foster home and is currently adjusting to this new situation. He was also just neutered on Monday 7/6/20 and is taking it slow while he is healing. Watch for additional updates on this cute little guy!