Jake (Double Merle Australian Shepherd)...

Jake was one of my very few failure stories.  I still miss the guy but I hope he will forever live on in this book and I will see him again.  Jake’s story starts out at the Albuquerque Animal Shelter in Albuquerque New Mexico.  I got a notification on my Facebook page for urgent animals in shelters.  I looked at it and saw Jake, a beautiful Australian Shepherd mix that need rescue help.  Seeing that he was in Albuquerque I immediately contacted the Rescue Coordinator and offered my help.  I found out that Jake, who was blind, was dropped off after biting a kid who ran up to him.   Now before you judge him understand why Jake might have done this.  He can’t see the kid who is running up to him.  He doesn’t know if the kid is friendly all he knows is that something is rushing up too him and even though he can see some shadows he can’t decipher if it is a friend or something that is going to attack him.  Most animals act on a fight or flight reflex.  Jake just so happened to take the fight stance and bite the kid.  Instead of understanding what caused the accident the family went and surrendered him to the shelter.

Knowing he was going to be hard to place I went to pull him and of course ended up pulling 5 other dogs from the shelter that weekend.  Jake did fine at my house for a month and a half he was learning to trust and was doing ok with my dogs.  My dog trainer and I were on edge though.  We had come to the conclusion that he was what is known as a lethal white in the Australian Shepherd terms.  Lethal white is a term given to a dog that is born from parents that both carry the Merle gene.  Most breeders will put the pup down then and there, they will also sometimes put the whole litter down giving you the term lethal white.  You have your breeds like Australian Shepherds and cattle dogs that have the Blue Merle and Red Merle patterns.  What some people don’t understand is that breeding Merle parents together results in pups that are all white with little bit of the patterns.  Yes they are beautiful but you have defects that can come with this type of breeding.  They can be deaf, blind, or both.  Some are great dogs, but then you have those who are good until a point and then it is as if their mind all but snaps.  They become aggressive and hard to handle. 

After the month and a half of doing fine Jake became agitated.  He started to show signs that his mind was snapping.  It started by going after my parents aggressively.  At first we thought his blindness was causing the confusion but later looking back I should have seen the change starting.   He later became so aggressive even with me we had no choice but to euthanize him.   Jake is a firm example at what people can cause.  He didn’t ask to be born into this world and be set up for failure.  The breeders who bred his litter are ultimately to blame.  Please, please before you breed or before you get a dog do your research.  Look at the pros and cons of getting a dog and consider if you have enough time to spend with a dog.  Also consider the future… do you plan on moving in the next few months and if you do are you going to make the needed effort / have the ability to take the dog with you.  Make sure you could handle the breed even before you consider one with special needs.  Jakes’ failure is a key reminder to me to respect even the friendliest dog.  You never know what you could be getting yourself into.  RIP big boy I will see you again when I get to the Rainbow Bridge.  You deserved so much more than what humans gave you on Earth.