Occasionally we are contacted about a bull terrier in need but receive some very confusing and conflicting information. Such is the case with Fletch, a bully at a shelter in New Jersey, who we were told about last week. The shelter staff felt strongly that there was hope for him and weren’t ready to give up on finding him a rescue. Initially though, to us, things did not sound promising for this young boy based on what we were told. However, after spending time talking with a few different individuals who could provide input from various angles, we decided to have someone go to the shelter to meet Fletch so we could see for ourselves what was going on. In truth, our expectations were very different than what the reality turned out to be and that is a very good thing. What we saw on Thursday afternoon, November 16th, when we had someone go meet Fletch was a young bully who was terrified and stressed out in the shelter environment. He reminded us of a bully we took in a few months ago who is now named Murphy. Lord Have Murphy was literally trying to crawl the walls of the shelter because he was so out of sorts with the situation he found himself in and as soon as he left that shelter, he was a different boy, a happy, calm boy. We are currently under the belief that Fletch’s behavior falls under a similar category as Murphy’s. We felt strongly that we needed to get Fletch out of the shelter as soon as possible. We worked hard over the last two days to find an ideal, quiet foster home for Fletch and set up transportation. Our hearts are full now because this morning as soon as the shelter would allow us to pull him, we got him out of there and sent him on his way to his foster home. This has been a valiant team effort where Fletch’s life was saved because of the tenacity of all of those involved.
Although Facebook doesn’t seem to let us tag everyone anymore we feel it is important to recognize all of those involved who had a part in this rescue. To start, we thank Liz, Josh, Laurie and Raphael and all the staff at the Vorhees Animal Orphanage who steadfastly stood by their belief that Fletch deserved a chance. We thank Christine Karol for her input and desire to help with the situation. We thank Melissa Searles for sharing her thoughts about Fletch as she had tried to go in and meet him but the appropriate staff wasn’t there so she could only observe him for a short while through his kennel. We thank Dave Hercock, dad to Tater Tot – Adopted, for going in to meet Fletch on short notice and spending a little time with him. We thank Laurie Castleberry, an excellent trainer, who spent a lot of time discussing the situation and observing video’s of Fletch so that we had a better understanding of what we were dealing with. We thank Kathy Riley for opening her home to Fletch so he can decompress and begin to build some confidence. We thank Dave and Maria for changing their plans for the entire day so that they could go pull Fletch and drive him over two hours to meet up with Kathy and her friend DL, who also drove over two hours to meet up. This is what rescue is about and we are lucky to be a part of it and a community who cares so much about our beloved bull terriers.
