Charley is a dog that looks like a solid gray bearded collie. He lived for three years with a hoarder. Two more years in two different rescue organizations, a month at a vet clinic and now, in a 20 X 15 pen (with a shade tree) and a sturdy dog house behind a horse stable. If you walk toward his pen he will growl at you without moving his head – as if it’s a matter of smell. Like those Japanese movies about Zatoichi, the blind samurai masseuse. This is not your run-of-the-mill growl, but a low, soft grumble that sends a chill up your spine. If you put a leash on him, he will violently bite through it, usually leaving his mouth bloody. As he has long hair around his mouth, it rapidly becomes a clot of blood, spit and dirt. He will not take food in the presence of a human. He will allow you to rub him through the chain link when he’s lying up against it, but he shows no indication that he likes it. It doesn’t change his behavior, either. Meaning that if your tools are “all positive” you can forget about fixing him before he dies.

(Note, I am a month into Charlie’s training. This post is where I started. I will update it as I can. This is  a dog who makes progress but throws speed-bumps in your way, constantly. Solve one thing and you are stopped until you solve something else. Right now we are working on getting him on leash without a war, every time. His leash biting is from being handled only on control sticks/catch poles his entire life. He goes from zero to 100 at the instant he feels tension on a leash.)