An Unexpected Alternate Route

Six years ago, on a cold, rainy day in early January, my life changed because of an alternate route and a snowstorm.

Brady had been surrendered by his owner to the Green River Animal Shelter in Columbia, Kentucky. The reason? He wouldn’t hunt. Our English Setter Rescue stepped up to give him a freedom ride. He was slated for a specific transport route out of the shelter, but heavy snow to the north forced a sudden change in plans. When the call went out for an alternative path, I raised my hand and volunteered our small home in Henderson, Kentucky, as a foster spot.

Our college friends volunteered to drive the middle leg of the three-part transport. When meeting up, we parked in single file and jumped out of our vehicles, exchanging quick hugs while trying to shield ourselves from the pouring sky above.

When they opened their back hatch to reveal him inside, the reality of his past hit home.

He had produced a fountain of drool on each side of his cheeks. His ribs showed prominently through his coat as he nervously gobbled up breaths.

“How was he?” I asked my friend.

“Very nervous,” she replied.

When you regularly transport rescue dogs, it’s common to encounter three distinct scenarios.

First, there is the dog that experiences instant euphoria. They sporadically race to escape the shelter’s four walls, jump into your vehicle, and become a tornado of energy tethered to your backseat or crate.

Second, there is the dog that calmly leaps into your car and quickly falls asleep to the radio, joyous to experience a reprieve from the barking of the shelter. They trust you completely, closing their eyes because they know they are moving somewhere safe. They don’t care where, just as long as it’s far from where they just were.

And then there’s the third scenario. The “very nervous” kind.

This was Brady. He was shaking, wide-eyed, blinking, head cocked, and ears raised—looking exactly like a horse ready to spook, shudder, and wheel around with its tail raised like a flag in the opposite direction.

The First Seven Days

When we got him home, Brady refused to leave his crate. For the first week, any spare minute I had was spent sitting on the floor, looking into that crate. Looking back at me was a scared, skinny dog with mental wounds he simply couldn’t escape.

To this abused boy, the outside world was an terrifying place.

I became a student of his behavior, dedicating my days to watching him. I silently celebrated the smallest victories. I spent days sitting just outside his crate, watching him slowly begin to surrender the past that had left him abandoned. I watched him eat his first real meal after almost three days of refusal. I caught the very first flicker of a tail wag. I noted the exact moment he finally let his head relax into the blankets to let himself rest.

Brady stayed with us for just seven days before we drove him to St. Louis to meet his originally scheduled foster family. The goodbye was incredibly heavy. Afterward, my husband and I tried to distract ourselves by touring the Budweiser plant and meeting the famous Clydesdales. But the weight of leaving him was too much; standing in the middle of the gift shop, I completely broke down. I was missing him terribly, panicked over whether he would continue to make progress, and wishing with everything I had that he was still with us.

As it turned out, Brady’s story with us was far from over.

A Quarantine Companion

When Brady began to regress at his new foster home, I received a phone call from the rescue asking if we would be willing to step back in and keep him long-term. It was early March 2020. An eerie feeling was beginning to surround everyone as hand sanitizer was being set out in restaurants, menus wiped down, right before the entire world would break loose into global lockdowns.

We picked Brady up on another transport just as the pandemic hit. He would spend the entire lockdown with us, acting as my constant work-from-home companion. During those strange, quiet months, he truly began thriving and relearning how to simply be a dog.

He stayed with us for several months until we all agreed he was finally ready for his forever home. This time, we drove him to West Virginia to meet his new adoptive mom. The transition went beautifully; Brady did very well, and you could clearly see how far he had come. Life moved on for us, and for a while, I finally stopped worrying about him.

But exactly one year after the adoption, we got a phone call we didn’t expect. His mom reached out to ask if he could return to us. The fear had become too much for him again; he had completely stopped going outside on his own.

Without hesitation, my husband and I agreed: we would take him back. And this time, he wouldn’t leave us again. We decided then and there to forever foster him. This is an agreement between an animal rescue organization or shelter and a foster caretaker. In this setup, an animal lives out the remainder of its life in a dedicated home, but the rescue organization retains legal ownership of the animal and typically continues to cover its veterinary expenses. As two young kids at the time facing high veterinary expenses with his brother Winston, it made perfect sense to us to forever foster him.

The Long Road Back

We drove to Louisville to pick Brady up. Although he remembered us, he felt like a completely different dog than the one who had left. He was so deeply, profoundly scared. The trauma had taken such a firm hold that he would poop and pee out of sheer terror anytime we tried to get him outside.

Recognizing that we needed professional guidance to break through his extreme anxiety, we enlisted the help of Rehab Your Rescue who specializes in fearful dogs and knows English Setters extremely well. We got him started on behavioral medications and began working with her virtually on a weekly basis. She helped us truly understand the root of his fear, taught us what we could do to support him, and coached us through the long process of rebuilding his confidence.

Even as he grew more comfortable inside the safety of our house, the backyard remained a massive hurdle. For months and months, we had to physically carry him outside every single time he needed to go. He was easily startled, and the open air put him right back into that state of high alert. We used advice from Rehab Your Rescue to progress from the furthest room from the backyard to steadily inching closer, room by room, over the course of weeks. We learned patience firsthand. Brady immediately feels triggered when pulled on the leash so we did without and coaxed with squeeze treats and chicken meatballs.

Turning the Corner

Then came a truly monumental day for our family.

Brady went outside completely on his own since being returned. He conquered his thoughts, took a breath, and just went for it. And he didn’t just do it once … he did it twice, on two entirely separate occasions.

It took months of patience, consistency, professional guidance, and unconditional love to get to this exact point. It was a huge milestone for us and Brady’s world continued to open up again since that moment.

We went extremely slowly, letting Brady set the pace for us entirely. But it was as if on that exact day, he finally turned a corner and gained a massive wave of confidence. He learned that we weren’t going to force him to do anything, and he realized he could truly trust us.

To help him find his footing outside, we even enlisted a bit of natural motivation: his prey drive. The squirrels that lived in our backyard became the perfect encouragement to get him exploring the grass on his own terms. His sister Ivy was also a huge help! She would get him excited from her barking and he would follow her lead.

From there, we started slowly introducing him to my parents’ rural farm. In that quiet, peaceful setting, away from the noise of the world, he learned the simple joy of going on long walks where there were no other people around to scare him. Piece by piece, his confidence started to build.

The Way Home

Our commitment to him only deepened as time went on. After his brother Winston passed away from Hemangiosarcoma, we knew we wanted to have more control over Brady’s medical future and be able to make quick and tough calls as we had to with Winston. After all we had been through, he was our dog. We knew him inside and out. And after such a traumatic loss, we couldn’t imagine not being able to officially call him ours. So, we signed the papers and adopted him.

Six years ago, Brady was a dog who wouldn’t leave his crate, deemed useless because he wouldn’t hunt. Today, he is a brave survivor learning how to navigate the world at his own pace. I am so incredibly proud of him, and I am so thankful for everyone who has supported us on this long, beautiful journey to bringing him all the way home.

Brady continues to make incredible strides forward, including since we were able to purchase our own farm last summer. Moving out of the suburbs into the rolling farm fields has been instrumental for him. He is truly thriving. You can follow along every day on our social media accounts to watch his progress.