Ninja

Ninja arrived in sad, sad shape. His kennel and belongings soaked in urine and he cowered in the back, refusing to look at us. He would not come out for cute "doggy talk", water, food or treats. We eventually left him in his crate in the back yard with the door open. He would slink out and sniff around but would sprint back to his crate if he saw us. So we removed his crate while he was out (and threw it away - stinky) but he would still hide the best he could when he saw us.

There are neglected dogs, there are mistreated dogs and there are abused dogs. We soon realized that Ninja was in the abused category. It took significant time and effort to gain some a degree of trust with him. It was always hard to catch a picture of him. For some reason he was terrified of the camera.

Time passed and he began to relax and integrate into our home. But never completely relaxed...
The good news is that Obi really liked him and this was the first foster dog that Obi would play with.
Why Ninja? If that front door opened just 1/2 an inch... *poof* he was GONE! He could slip out that door and RUN. By the time I was out the door he was already rounding the corner down the block. This dog could run and had so much energy to do it. Just to burn off his energy, my wife would put on roller-blades and he would pull her around the neighborhood at full sprint!

Below he is shown "cleaned up" but still scared of the camera. Terrified actually.
Ninja stayed with us for months and we worked hard to help him recover from his abuse, but we were never able to get him to the state of "adoptable". He was eventually moved to a calmer foster home without children, where he made better progress.
We later heard that this little guy took on a coyote who had jumped the fence into the yard to steal dog food. It earned him several stitches... but dang... GO NINJA!

Ninja was adopted to a family, then returned because he got loose and RAN like a ninja, then adopted again... and there he has stayed. My heart goes out to this mini... he had some hard times in his past.
Please treat your dogs with kindness.