What's up dog?

Rodney has a special nature due to his early upbringing, encouraging the humans around him to be patient, believe in him, and take their time to earn his trust, cuddles, and licks.

He teaches those around us that we can change, we do change, and we all just need a bit of love and support to get through our hard emotions.

Rodney came into our care as a foster dog with Wandering Angels Animal Sanctuary. He travelled from the sanctuary in Waipu to Cromwell in 2023 to be fostered with us at just 5 months old. After a year of getting to know Rodney and his quirks, we sadly figured it was unlikely that someone would adopt Rodney, so we figured we were his people, Rodney was already home.

Rodney lives with another resident dog, Dre a rescue from Whangarei Pound, a foster dog, Pepper, and a stray kitten, Bert. He loves his roomie's with all of his heart.

Rodney struggles massively with meeting new humans and new dogs. He barks, growls, lunges.. out of fear due to past attacks when he was young. He wears his awesome green muzzle from The Muzzle Movement out in public to allow a safe and manageable training regiment where he can learn about life outside of his home. He has spent many hours working hard and improving in managing his big feelings about scary experiences, with the help of Zoomie's Dog Training & Adventure's.

Rodney is a large, fit dog, with a load of mental energy to burn. After realising he could not be safely managed off-leash in public, despite his absolute love for water and fetching pinecone's, we knew he needed an outlet to run free. Sure enough, we stumbled upon Dog-On Adventures 'Sled Dog Skills' course in May 2024, and Rodney is due to compete in his first ever Bikejoring event in August 2024!

We are forever proud of this young dog, his resilience, his ongoing love, and his proof that a bad-dog is actually a really good-dog having a difficult time processing the big-wide-world and needs some kindness to show him the way forward. He deserve's every chance to succeed and enjoy his life as a dog, and we are here to make it happen for him.
Rodney has a whole community of friends, family and professionals backing his training and rooting for him to succeed despite most of them never being able to pat him due to his reactivity! They still love him and want to see him live his best life.