Albus Has a Happy Beginning by Danielle Moss
Meet our beautiful boy, Albus Dumbledog! We rescued Albus in April of 2018, right before his first birthday. Albus was swapped for another dog between coworkers of mine. My coworker would complain she could not find anyone take him, and I quote “I cannot yell or hit him because he is deaf, and it’s annoying. I’m just going to take him to a shelter.” I went home that afternoon and vented this to my fiancée (now wife) she responded “So, what you’re telling me is we are getting another dog?” We already had 3 cats and 1 dog, but decided we would try and foster Albus to help find him a better, more deserving home.
The moment we stepped into his previous house and saw him we knew we had to help him immediately. He was underweight seeing all of his ribs and most of his spine, a terrible rash had formed on his neck/chest that my coworker wrapped an ace bandage around. We got him home and cleaned him up, his rash cleared and his weight had increased. Albus was extremely cautious at first. Especially If we moved to quickly with our arms or hands, he would flinch. He wouldn’t let us pet his head or neck for a while. He was never aggressive, just scared.
We stayed patient but now we can hardly keep him off us haha. My fiancée and I knew nothing about deaf dogs but through some research I found Deaf Dogs Rock website. This was our saving grace, Christina and Chris Lee with Deaf Dogs Rock were so helpful and informative. From there we set up Albus’ profile for his adoption on the Deaf Dogs Rock website and started training/signing.
Albus was (and is) so intelligent, he learned the signs we taught him within a few months. It was as if he finally said “Yes! I can understand you!.” He now
knows over 10 signs, and we aren’t stopping there. We had a few families that were interested in adopting Albus, but none of them worked out. Typically this
was due to the family’s other dog being too aggressive towards him. That or we were “ghosted” by people who had maybe not truly thought this decision out. We didn’t let this discourage us though, we continued to train and learn with Albus.
Before we knew it, a year had passed! Each time we talked, emailed or met with a potential adopter, the harder this became for us. We also learned through
watching Albus he hated leaving our side when with new people. We had formed such a strong bond and knew he wanted to stay, and we absolutely didn’t want to let him go. After talking it through we decided its time to take him off the adoption waiting list because Albus has been home along.
