27 MayEpisode 9 | Our student Basket is helping geneticists extend the life of large dogs
What happens when you fall in love with a certain kind of dog, but then learn about all the genetic problems that plague the breed? You might eschew the breed all together, or you might just take your chances. Basket's owners did neither...
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Podcast Episode 9: Our Student Basket is Helping Geneticists Extend the Life of Large Dogs
Transcript:
Annie:
I'm here with our clients. I should say clients, plural. I am here with our human client, Samantha Schwartz, and her dog are the canine client of this team. Oh, who's giving her a big hug right now. Who’s name is Basket and he is this huge, deliciously, lovely black and furry. Just big galoot of a dog who I wish I had a life-sized stuffed animal of that I could just snuggle and cuddle all day long.
He looks like a Bernese Mountain Dog. He is not totally a Burmese mountain dog, which we're going to talk about in a moment. And when I first met Samantha and her partner, Ben, they started to tell me about how Basket came into their lives. And I was fascinated.
**music**
Samantha:
I had always wanted a Bernese Mountain dog. I had grown up with labs and retrievers
and Ben grew up with a Norwegian Elkhound and a Chinook. We were kind of like, I was just dead set on having a Bernese Mountain Dog.
We were living out in Cape Cod, getting his family's house together last spring, just temporarily. And we were like, well, let's get the dog ‘ause it'll be easy to train the dog while we're out here. We have some time. So last year, we started more seriously looking at Berneses again, and he thought that it would be better if we maybe looked at getting a mixed breed. We were looking at all the rescues, there’s a lot of Bernese rescue organizations. And then we were, we were looking at just different options. And finally we ended up saying, why don't we see about getting a mixed breed, something that is part Bernese.
Annie:
You were said you were worried about the health issues.
Samantha:
So Bernese Mountain Dogs have, being one of the giant… they're one of the giant breed dogs, um, similar to great Danes and Saint Bernard's. So they can be up to 150 pounds, females on average weigh between I think 90 and 110, and then the males can weigh much more than that. Because they're a giant breed they have some joint issues and things like that because of their bones, but they also have a particular type of cancer that is really, really prevalent in their breed. They are dying really young. They're very… purebred dogs in general are very inbred. They have what's called closed studbooks and the close studbooks mean that they kind of all ended up being cousins with each other. And because of that, their genetic diversity is leading to many health problems.
Annie:
Sometimes I explain it to people when, you know, I always think it's, first of all, I always think it's funny when people are like, “Oh my I have a mutt. He's part this and part that.” I'm like, no, he's probably part a billion things.
Samantha:
Exactly.
Annie:
But more than that, something like the whole designer dog term, like all dogs are designers, just some are more modern than others. And there are designer dogs that used to exist that don't anymore. And that in order to get dogs, in order to breed dogs that all look alike, you have to do a lot of inbreeding and we could. What’s kind of creepy is that like we could do that with people too, it's just…
Samantha:
We choose not to.
Annie:
Well their generations are so much shorter.
Samantha:
Right.
Annie:
Look at, you know, there's this an extent of closed population.
Samantha:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Everybody looks a certain way. Right.
Annie:
A lot of the modern day breeding trends that we are working with today started like 150ish years ago, right around the same time as eugenics.
Samantha:
Exactly. Correct.
Annie:
It's like we switched our focus from people to dogs.
Samantha:
Exactly. And these are all things that I had never personally thought about or considered at all before we started really looking into it and I'd certainly never considered it in the dog, in the capacity of a dog or getting a puppy or anything. So once I really..
Annie
What opened up your eyes to thinking about way?
Samantha:
Ben just kind of offhand said, “well, why don't we get something that's a mix because then it will be healthier because mixed breeds have less health problems. And then it won't be quite as big.” He was a little nervous about having a giant dog, not having ever had a giant dog. And so..
Annie:
Speaking to Basket: You are a giant dog, you are a giant goofball.
So he's sitting here right now, with lying down with both his paws on my lap.
Samantha:
Smiling.
Annie:
You are smiling and getting occasional treats, occasional treats for good behavior. Oh, you get it.
I'm sorry I interrupted you because of the cuteness that I'm dealing with here.
Samantha:
So once we decided we wanted a mixed breed dog, I already had a pretty solid contact list of Bernese Mountain Dog people. We had previously contacted them before we decided on a mixed breed, when we were just looking for a Bernese – looking for a puppy, looking for a younger dog to adopt whether it be a rescue or, you know, something, a rehome or something like that. Or even we were open to fostering temporarily while we were in this life situation. And ultimately we ended up contacting a woman who from the Bernese Mountain Dog community. And she suggested I contact the heads…she gave me basically a list. And she suggested that I contact all of these people, which were each regional Bernese Mountain Dog’s clubs, like presidents or people in charge of placements. And so I had this list of like 50 to 75 Bernese Mountain Dog club people from all these different regional clubs all throughout the country.
And so I wrote a sort of generic email. So I gave all the answers in this email and said, we are looking for a Bernese Mountain Dog, but we are looking for a mixed breed because we are concerned with the health issues. So if anyone knows of anyone or can point us in a direction where we would love any help we can get.
Well, I received some of the most hostile responses to this email,
Annie:
To your email?
Samantha:
To this very innocent, what I thought was well-articulated email and and letter. And I just was received very hostily.
Annie:
And these were breeders?
Samantha:
Basically they were all people in different capacities, but they were the ones that were in charge of placements, whether it be for rescues or breeding or anything else. They were the people in charge of these regional groups that worked with these regional groups that I was told would be the contact points of contact for what we were looking for, or to get our names out there. And it just didn't go well. It wasn't exclusively hostile. I will say that I did receive a few….
Annie:
Why were they hostile?
Samantha:
They were hostile because they were very annoyed that I would suggest breeding a Bernese Mountain Dog to anything. That I should love them the way they are and not concern myself with these health issues. Completely ignoring the fact that they're dying; their average life expectancy right now is like seven years old. That's not right there. That's a problem. And it's being ignored.
Annie:
And like I said, they were initially bred from different kinds of dogs.
Samantha:
Exactly. Exactly.
Annie:
They didn’t start out with with Adam and Eve.
Samantha:
Right. Well, I couldn't believe these, they were very nasty, they were just nasty. We were both shocked. We both were, like, “Oh, we had no idea there were dog Nazis. Who knew? Turns out there are,.” He was very supportive and I, kind of was like, I don't need a dog now after this, because it was just such a bad experience. It was like one after another, like everyday was just getting a really nasty..
Unbeknownst to me, one of the people that I had contacted took a screenshot of my email, including my personal contact, my and Ben's personal contact information and posted it to Facebook. And that began a chain of events, which ultimately led us to Basket. Because there were many very vile responses on this Facebook post.
“How dare this girl, you know, suggest this. She doesn't know anything about our community and blah, whatever. “
So apparently it got shared around the internet pretty widely, with large discussion, with personal contact information. They started contacting me through my cell phone number and my email, which was included in my letter.
Annie:
So now you are getting texts and emails from strangers.
Samantha:
From strangers, Yes. So it sort of got out of control really quickly. Put it this way: they weren't educating me, they were reprimanding me. And it wasn't a very…it was hostile. That's the best way to describe it. And it was confusing and overwhelming for me because I didn't know who to trust anymore or who was on my side or who I could turn to. And I started to feel like, Oh, I, I think I just ostracized myself from the Bernese community unintentionally. I don't think I've ever going to be able to have a Bernese Mountain Dog, unfortunately. Like I've just made…like I had no idea. I didn't know what I had done that was so bad.
Annie:
Crazy.
Samantha:
It was really overwhelming. However..
Annie:
Did you cry real tears?
Samantha:
I did, I actually did.
Annie:
I believe it.
Samantha:
However, I was really lucky because some people reached out to me within a couple of days and weeks actually, that were wonderful. So one of the things Bernese Mountain Dogs have that isn't as common in the dog world is they have a database, like basically an ancestry.com for Bernese Mountain Dogs. It's called Berner Garde. And it's a database of every Bernese Mountain Dog for the last 70 years. And if it's a hundred percent Bernese Mountain Dog and it's, it's DNA, it's health, it's hips, it's eyes.. sort of everything is in there.
The woman that did the data entry for the last 30 years for this database. So she was the manager of it in terms of just entering the data, contacted me and she called me and was as sweet as could be. And she said, you are asking the right questions. I have watched for decades put six month old puppies that have cancer and are dying. And I have watched the health in these dogs get worse and worse, and I have been responsible for overseeing it and something has to be done and you're not wrong.
And she really just changed my perspective. And she pointed me to a couple of women. What I learned is these are largely, within the breed community, it's largely women, they're largely older. It's sort of like a privilege hobby kind of thing, like horses. And the women, the people that are involved in, in, in these communities and they show the dogs and it's sort of like that movie Best in Show in real life, it's what I realized. And didn't didn't know what I was getting myself into.
Um, and so she gave me the names of a few people that she had known that over the years had a few, what she called “oops litters.” And I had never heard that term. And what it was, is some of the people that are well known, reputable breeders of Bernese Mountain Dogs accidentally, sometimes, another dog bred to one of their bitches, and so they had “oops litters” that were mixed. And so these people had data.
So then I got to talking to some of these other women that were supportive to my inquiry, and I sort of picked back up my search because I ended up interacting with these people that were supportive and telling me I was asking the right questions and that I should just ignore these people that were hostile and that they are, I'm just being naive to the, their own problems. And it's not helpful. And it's not a long term solution to keep turning a blind eye to the health issues.
So I then was contacted by a woman named Anne Nichols. Anne Nichols has been in the Bernese Mountain Dog community for about 40 years now. She has bred and shown Bernese Mountain Dogs and she decided along with some veterinary geneticists and some other people from within the Bernese Mountain Dog community that they were going to do something about it. And they started a project together called the Bernese Mountain Dog Vitality Project.
And what it is an outbreeding program. So over many decades, with the help of these geneticists and the DNA that we have available to us now, they are choosing to intentionally cross Bernese, healthy Bernese Mountain Dogs, with other breeds over time to eventually get back to a Bernese Mountain Dog that has the genetic diversity, that the health issues are eliminated.
Basket’s dad is a champion Bernese Mountain Dog that is very healthy and his mom is a mixed breed. So his mom was part golden retriever, part Labrador retriever, and a one eighth English setter. And his mom is black and white and has the ticking on her coat, which means like she's spotted… Basket
Annie:
The sounds are Basket playing tug with me. Basket, you're going to be on the podcast sounding like a lunatic, a lunatic muppet.
Samantha:
So she was a mixed breed. So her litter ended up being 11 puppies, which is also unheard of for a Bernese Mountain Dog because their litters are not so big.
Annie:
Now the person who bred them is this woman, Anne?
Samantha:
It ended up being Anne. It won’t always be Anne. She's just a founder of the project. This was just a coincidence that I ended up being she was the one that bred this litter.
Annie:
And where is she?
Samantha:
She's in Minnesota. She is in Northern Minnesota, about three hours north of Minneapolis.
Annie:
Had she been privy to the whole thing that was going on with you getting trolled?
Samantha:
Yes. Which is why she contacted me. So Anne saw that I had been attacked and some of the other people that knew about her project saw that I had been attacked and reached out to her and said, “you gotta talk to this girl. This girl is exactly who you're looking for.” And it just turned it, it turned out right.
So we, so she contacted me and she pointed me to the direction of the website and told me a little bit about the project and said, “I think you might be interested in what we're doing. I heard you were asking some questions, you might be our perfect candidate.” And I looked over the website and I immediately was like, “Oh my God, this is exactly the kind of thing we want to be involved with.” Ben came home from work and I showed it to him and we talked about it and..
Annie:
It seems like so fortuitous.
Samantha:
Yeah. And he agreed. And so she said the next step, if we wanted there was a woman that had adopted one of the dogs from the first litter in.. that was a puppy at this point. So this was last February, so February, 2017. And she said, if we wanted to drive up to New Hampshire, she could arrange a meeting and we could ask questions of this woman and meet the puppy and see if we wanted to move forward.
So we agreed to do that. We connected with this woman, another person, turned out that this woman had also been in the Bernese Mountain Dog community as a show person for 40 years and has also bred many Bernese Mountain Dogs and agreed that it was the only thing that made sense was to do something with all these problems that they were having and that she felt like she couldn't, in good conscious, continue to breed these Bernese Mountain Dogs. And she's bred dogs from all over the world. Like she's…it's not like they're only breeding to other dogs in their region. Like these women that are involved or, I shouldn't say just women, the people that are involved in these breeding communities, they have resources, they're wealthy. They're traveling to Australia to mate a bitch and a stud for the right reasons to win these shows. These are not like, oh, they're only being bred with the nearest dog. These people are traveling to the far reaches of the world.
Annie:
There's also a huge market for dog semen.
Samantha:
Right.
Annie:
Which cracks me up. It cracks me up just from an evolutionarily, like it's like, oh my God, they have gotten so good, right at existing in this world that they even have us…they even have us transporting their DNA stuff.
Samanatha:
Right.
Annie:
Overhead to far reaches. They don't even have to have sex anymore.
Samantha:
Yeah. It's crazy. It's crazy.
So this is a woman that has the money and the resources to literally fly anywhere in the world to get herself the healthiest Bernese Mountain Dog mates and puppies and whatever she could want. And she has done this, she's been part of this community for 40 years. And she still decided that contributing to this project and adopting a puppy from this project was the right thing to do.
So we drove up, my partner Ben and I drove up to New Hampshire and we met her two amazing older Bernese Mountain Dogs and the puppy from the first litter, Aeson. Every puppy from the first letter has an “A” name and every puppy from the second letter has a “B” name. And third and fourth will be “C” and “D” so that it's a little easier to manage.
**music**
Samantha:
Ben and I had agreed to take a litter from litter number two, so back in February of 2017. However, there was no set date of when that was going to exist. They didn't have any dogs pregnant at the time, so we had no idea what that would look like. And we were okay with that. In the meantime, we were contacted by some of the rescues with a few Bernese Mountain Dog: 50% Bernese Mountain Dog, 50% something else. Puppies, when they came up at the, because they do, they come up. And we turned them down. We decided, no, we decided, we thought that it wasn't solving the root issues and we feel like this project is working in that direction to solve some of the bigger issues in dogs. And some of the reasons that dogs are ending up in rescue to begin with, which is some of these health and temperament issues. So to us we were looking at more of a long term involvement in a solution rather than a short term.
So Basket was not born and so we waited very, very patiently and had a lot of time to prepare ourselves to be puppy parents and read many books. Basket was not born until October 27th of 2017 and we had no idea what we were getting up until up until we did. We didn't know what kind of mom he was going to have. So we didn't know what the other half of him was going to be.
Annie:
Is the goal trying to make dogs that look like Bernese and temperament.
Samantha:
No, the goal..the ultimate goal will to be a hundred percent Bernese Mountain Dog that look and act and are Bernese Mountain Dogs genetically will be no different. However, they will have genetic diversity and then will eliminate that gene that's causing the cancer. They've actually done outbreeding programs like this with great success in.. a good deal in the Scandanavian countries and it's been pretty well documented.So that's sort of what they're basing it on.
Annie:
How does he look versus a Bernese?
Samantha:
So he looks almost exactly the same as a Bernese Mountain Dog. He gets mistaken for a Bernese Mountain Dog with the exception of his..he's missing the rust markings. So he has the black and white markings in the exact same places. However, he does not have the rust-colored markings. So like a Bernese would also have rust above his white on his paws. And he'd have brown eyebrows, whereas, or rust colored eyebrows, whereas he just has the black.
Annie:
He's keeping it simple. He's like,” I don't need no a third accent color. I'm all black and white.” How did he get any Basket?
Samantha:
Um, so we had a long list of “B” names and we both had decided we very much did not want a human name. We had many food options like bagel and brisket and things like that. And I thought brisket, it was kind of funny cause it's black and white and Ben was not as amused by those options as I was. And so one day..
Annie:
Blackie wasn't enough?
Samantha:
I was just putting something in one of our storage baskets and I said, “how about Basket?” And we could call them “bacs” or something. And he's like, “actually I really like that and he'll be one of a kind cause he is one of my kind and it's fit!. So here he is.
Annie:
He's a basket case.
Samantha:
A little bit.
Annie:
Agreeing to take a puppy, did you have to agree to anything in particular as far as terms having to do with the study?
Samantha:
Um, yes. So agreeing to take a puppy, we had to agree to a few stipulations.
One is that our name would be the letter of the litter. So our name had to start with a “B.” We also have to agree to be in contact with the project for the life of the dog and report all of the health and temperament and behavioral issues throughout the health of the dog. And we have to agree to get his x-rays and health certifications done at one year. And ideally, they are looking for people that are willing to wait to neuter and spay the dogs because if they can't, they're not… the geneticists don't really know if they'll want to use the DNA or if they'll want to mate your dog until about 12 months. So they, which is fine, because actually with giant breed dogs, you don't want to neuter or spay them before 12 months anyhow because it's healthier for them to wait.
Annie:
Right. Well, there's a lot of..
Samantha:
There are opinions.
Annie:
For all sized dogs, there are a lot of opinions about whether you should wait or not wait or do it at all.
Samantha:
Right. Exactly. So it made sense to us. And we said we were, we were open to it. We were willing to do that. Some of the dogs with this litter, they were able to right away determine a few of them they wouldn't be mating with. So those went to homes that wanted to be able to have their dogs neutered or spayed right away or whenever they, at whatever point they decided. And that was fine. Ben and I were of the opinion that we were open to waiting and that we would manage it however we needed to manage it. So we agreed that seemed reasonable to us.
Annie:
Were their costs associated with it.
Samantha:
A donation to the project. Just like if you were donating to a rescue. So, you know, someone bred and cared for this dog for the first two months of its life. So..
Annie:
I actually, I wanted to ask you about rescue. You said you'd reached out to some rescues. What was your experience with that?
Samantha:
Um, so actually while.. to get Basket, I flew by myself, without Ben, to Chicago and then I took a little rinky dink commuter flight to this nowhere town up in Northern Minnesota and rented a car and drove two hours from the airport to this house in the middle of Northern Woods, Minnesota where basket was living with his mom and dad and siblings and uncle and all kinds of animals. And then that meant that I had to drive with this eight week old puppy back and myself, this two hour drive to..
Annie:
Chicago?
Samantha:
No to Duluth, Minnesota. And then because this is a small town, there are only so many flights per day. And so we had to get a hotel and then a fly from Duluth to Chicago and then to Chicago back to New York City. Well, this was quite an adventure for an eight week old puppy and he was a bit of a scaredy cat, as you can imagine.
Annie:
Ohh, It was a lot to take in.
Samantha:
It was a lot to take in. And he was very, very, you know, all of these things were new. He had spent the first eight weeks of his life in a rural middle of nowhere farmhouse. And so city sounds and hotels and airports and wheelchairs and all of the things that go along with hotels and airports were new and really scary and he was extremely brave. And really like he was the size, he was 15 pounds, he's now about 65 pounds and he had done very well because Anne's specialty is early puppyhood training. So he really had him trained very well.
Annie:
But he was scared…
Samantha:
He was scared, but he was brave. And so some, a bunch of people I didn't even know about dog Instagram. And as I'm on this, these flights and I'm kind of texting my friends that I'm bringing home this puppy one of my friends is like, Oh, what's his Instagram?
*Basket starts barking*
Annie:
Oh are you telling us what your Instagram is?
Samantha:
What do you mean, what's his Instagram? And they're like, “no, no, he needs his own Instagram.: So I, I it was like,”Oh well okay. I sure. And so I was like, actually that makes sense ‘cause then I don't flood the internet..
Annie:
You knew all about dog genetics, but not about dog instagram.
Samantha.
Didn’t know.
Annie:
You are an anomaly, Samantha.
-Annie talking to Basket barking-
I don’t talk like that. Don’t talk to me like that. Down, please. Okay, thank you.
Samantha:
And so I decided just kind of like quickly on a whim, “Basketthebrave” because it was… he was doing a brave thing and he is doing a brave thing.
Annie:
He's doing a brave thing by being adorable. Well, I mean, so much of training when you're dealing with a puppy is the socialization stuff. And it sounds like you do got him from a breeder who was doing things right and introducing him to lots of things.
Samantha:
Yeah,she was taking him into this bigger city.
Annie:
And it doesn't mean that those things can't still be scary. Like they might still be scary, but like you're gonna like synthesize them into their like larger view of the world faster than if it's the first time they ever left the farm.
Samantha:
Right. No, exactly. So there will be more puppies. There certainly will be the need for more people to get involved. Basket would love to have as many cousins as possible. Living in this city and, you know, young people and people that are.. that had not been in the show dog community for decades are really proactive and really involved in rescuing and fostering and all of that, which is wonderful. However, it would be really wonderful to also get them involved in some of these genetic projects. And I know, I'm sure the Bernese Mountain Dog outbreeding program is not the only one. If there's a particular dog that you like and breed that you like, ask these questions, ask these difficult questions, provoke these people, get involved. If you want to be involved in this project, you know, there are certainly going to be a need for that in the long term.
Annie:
Well, I think, I think the two things can kind of go hand in hand to some extent because yes, we want all dogs to have homes and that's why foster and rescue work are both really important but, or not “but” and if we succeed at doing really well with like spaying and neutering and rescuing and finding homes for dogs, then what's next? Well, if all dogs who need homes have homes, then we can start thinking about how we can breed dogs that are better suited for our environment and suited to live longer, happier lives. And I think that should really, that should be the goal, in my opinion, of all breeding rather than looks.
Samantha:
Absolutely. And that's exactly it. Like I really, and I don't think one has to come after the other. I think the two can be,..
Annie:
Well they're both long term.
Samantha:
They're both long term and I think they can happen in sync with one another.
Annie:
I absolutely agree.
Samantha:
If fostering or rescuing is something that you care about deeply, by all means get involved. But if you can ask bigger questions and if you can get involved in other ways, do that. Provoke the breeders to think about things from a new perspective because that's exactly what it is.
Annie:
And not breeding for purely what meets the eye because conformation gets its word because you're breeding to conform to a specific look.
Samantha:
Basket’s really lucky because he ended up.. or we got really lucky because Basket ended up looking like a Bernese Mountain Dog. However, he's only the only one of all 11 puppies that does.
Annie:
Oh really?
Samantha:
The other 10 do not look anything like Bernese Mountain Dogs. They are… they don't have the same markings there. They're different.
Annie:
Do we have photos? I'll put those in the show notes.
Samantha:
But all 10 people and families that adopted those other dogs did so, anyways, because this project is about the greater good of the breed. And it's about making dogs that are healthier and live without as much suffering. And that, I think, that that is really important that, you know, it's not just about looks and having the cutest dog..
Annie:
Oh but he’s pretty cute though..
Samantha:
…and having, you know, Instagrammable dog, although basket does do pretty well with that department. But you know, and I think that that needs to be recognized as well.
Annie:
Are any of his siblings local?
Samantha:
No, no one is in New York. We almost got someone to take one of his brothers, but they didn’t, it didn't work out. But one of his sisters is in the Berkshire's and we've met up with her a few times and there are some in, like, outside of Boston and we plan to meet up with them when we go up to our house in Cape Cod.
Annie:
And do you see this as, like, probably what you'll be doing for the rest of your life as long as you own a dog?
Samantha:
Um, yeah, I think we'll continue being a part of this project. Absolutely.
Annie:
So cool.
Samantha:
You know, Ben been pretty interested in already talking about making sure that we have like, another puppy that we'll learn from Basket, eventually.
Annie:
So learn how to be a adorable?
Samantha:
So he wants to, you know, maybe we’ll end up getting one of Basket’s grandchildren.
Annie:
-talking to Basket-
You’re going to be a grandpa. We haven't told you about sex yet. You're going to have to figure that out on your own. We don't train that.
Samantha:
Years from now. But yeah, I think we'll, we will definitely always, you know, be involved in this project. Like I said, I've volunteered to manage the database so I will,you know, continue on this route, you know, sort of forever.
Annie:
-talking to Basket-
Oh, are you sitting on mom's lap? You're such a love.
Thank you so much for taking time to tell me about him. I hope it inspires other people to get a little bit more interested in some of the opportunities that are out there to help and read.
Samantha:
And adopt your dog's DNA, give your dog's DNA to the NIH, to the dog genome project.
Annie:
Well, I'm going to, in the show notes, I'm going to make sure that we point to all that.
Samantha:
There's all kinds of studies and they need data and to fix the health problems, they need it, they need the data and that's the only way they can solve some of these things. So. Great.
Annie:
All right. Thank you.
Samantha:
You're welcome.
Annie:
Thank you, Basket.
**music**
Annie:
Our Fun Dog fact of the dog is that Irish president Michael Higgins has two Bernese Mountain Dogs. Their names are Broad and Shadow and he often brings them to events with him.
Our Woof Shout Out goes to a dog I mentioned a few weeks ago, Suki, who is a beautiful young white French bulldog who is looking for a home. She was placed in a home briefly. It didn't work out. She's back in the East village and we, at School for the Dogs, have worked quite a bit with Suki and her foster parents, Michelle and Sahu, and she's a great dog. I'd really love to help find her a home. Suki would do best in a home where there weren't a lot of people going in and out, not lots of visitors. She is okay being home alone for some lengths of time. She doesn't do great on the street around other dogs. I think that's something that a new owner could work on with her, but probably would the ideal if she weren't in a place where the streets were highly trafficked by other dogs. And lastly, Michelle says she must be in a home where she is going to be loved like crazy. I want that for her to just, you can learn more about Suki on Instagram at buckysfostercrew.
Links:
Berner Garde
