Cheyenne’s Story

We decided to add another to our pack after a terrible health scare with IO made us face her mortality. We reasoned that IO was beginning to age. IO and Jackson are only a year apart, and they are soul mates. We feared that once one of them goes, the other will follow shortly, leaving us dogless. So we want to an adoption fair. We left and came back several times. None of the puppies really stood out to us. No one except Cheyenne, a year old at the time. In her kennel, she snoozed away, calm as can be. We questioned whether or not she would “fit in” because she was so “calm.” HA! If we had only known.

But in all seriousness, Cheyenne came to us a damaged soul. We were aware that she had been given away at least twice. She had serious trust issues. People had let her down on multiple occasions and in many ways. This presented a number of challenges to us. She had no concept of wanting to please people. She was hardwired very differently from our two herding dogs who live to please. She just was not motivated to learn what we were asking from her. I was overconfident, thinking that she would worship me for saving her, and this was not the case. I had to give up my ego-driven vision of myself as a dog expert and realized that healing had to take place on her terms, in her time table. I threw my 30 minute Cesar Milan Dog Whisperer expectations out the window. I stopped expecting her to perform to my set of expectations and stopped being frustrated that she wasn’t obedient in the way I wanted her to be. I got real, and said: this is the starting point where we are. This is point we begin, let’s work from here. If you need to take little tiny baby steps, little tiny baby steps is what we will do. Over time, consistency and loving worked its magic. Her demons began to heal and she began to realize that we weren’t going to give her away. A turning point arrived where she suddenly gained confidence, opened up, and healed a lot. She stopped guzzling her food, she stopped shaking like a leaf when we approached her. It was a learning curve for both of us–there were no books and my previous experience did not help. Jackson, who had also been mistreated, was a different dog with different abilities and different coping strategies. I had to start from scratch and start trusting my own instincts. And that’s when we started getting somewhere.

There were many times  I thought I couldn’t do this, that she was too much to handle.  Thankfully, during these times my husband talked sense into me, and when he thought he couldn’t handle it, I reminded him he could. We just knew that if we couldn’t handle her, she had no chance. She would most likely be put down. If she managed to escape that outcome, she would never heal. And through it ALL (and I do mean all) she exhibited such a sweetness, that we just never gave up on her. I can’t say I was perfect with her, I lost my temper and yelled more times than I wish to admit. In the beginning, I was too strict for a dog who had her history. But I kept trying, and eventually, together, we taught  each other.

She has inspired me more than any person. That she could be treated the way she was, and not give up on people all together, that she could stay loyal and sweet, and not turn mean simply amazes me. She, and this experience,  has taught me more about myself than anything else in my life: about making mistakes, about not giving up, about believing in someone else. She exposed my limitations and weaknesses and brought to light things I need to work on. But she has also proven to me my capacity to love another being. She reminds me to live in the moment and fully pay attention to moments of joy. She reminds me to be kind always. And above all else, she reminds me to never give up on those you love.

Fave Blog Posts about Cheyenne:

  1. A History of Cheyenne
  2. What to do with a Shoo Shoo
  3. The Snaggle
  4. Evidence of Cheyenne’s Weirdness
  5. Cheyenne’s Basenji Side
  6. Chey, Before and After
  7. My Favorite Things About Cheyenne
  8. Sweet Shoo Shoo

For a list of things she’s destroyed, click here and don’t forget here.

Top 5 Cheyenne Incidents

  1. The bunny she caught and brought inside the house.
  2. The baby bird.
  3. The cough drops.
  4. The Cornfield Incident.
  5. The Dead Animal Incident.