Meet Nala! She’s had quite a bumpy journey the first two years of her life, and she’s hoping to find her perfect forever home now. Nala came to us with her mom and two siblings as an 8-week old puppy in 2021 from Clovis, NM.

Nala was adopted shortly after joining us and remained with that family for the last 1.5+yrs. Although there were other dogs and kids in her home, her adopters unfortunately did not socialize her well at all and Nala became extremely fearful whenever she left the house. On top of the lack of socialization, she also was not taught boundaries or trained properly, and as a result she snapped at a new tiny puppy that they decided to adopt in their already full house with 4 kids and 3 dogs. Rather than work with a professional, they threatened to put Nala down if we did not take her back immediately, giving us less than 24hrs to do so.

We’re so fortunate that one of our longtime families who had happened to adopt her mama stepped up and took her back in temporarily. While she was heartbroken to be abandoned by her family and totally frozen at first, she did warm up pretty quickly. She has adjusted well to an active home and she now gets daily walks to help her with her social skills outside the home. She has also been to the dog park several times and does well with all the other dogs there!

The biggest behavioral issue that Nala has is honestly that she just loves her human too much and doesn’t want to share attention. Given that she is still young, her foster has made amazing progress working on this so far, and Nala is co-existing well with two medium dogs and one small dog in her foster home now. Her foster will happily go over what steps she has taken to curb this behavior, but it primarily consists of rewarding good behavior (sharing space), and ignoring/turning away at attempts to jump and hog attention.

Having said that, Nala would be an AMAZING only dog. She certainly doesn’t need to be an only dog with how far she has come, but she would thrive in that environment.

We would like this (still) young pup to find a new family that is active and willing to continue to enforce boundaries and training to help her feel the most secure and confident. In exchange, you’ll be rewarded with a companion that is absolutely devoted, willing to please and loves to hike and play fetch. Be ready to share your pillow! She is definitely a cuddle bug.

Please schedule a meet and greet and get to know Nala.