Sweet Niko

This is one of my favorite success stories!

This is sweet Niko. She likes to spend her days boating with her dad and getting all the love she can from her wonderful family. 💜 

Niko wasn't always this happy. Niko looked like this the first time I met her. She was trying to bite my hands out of fear. 

Niko was dumped in a very small, rural town right outside of my town. She had been running in that town for around three months before she made it all the way to my town. Nobody could catch her and many had tried. When I heard about her, I couldn't let it go. I had to catch her. My mom and I drove to where she was spotted in my town and waited. We finally found her and did our best to catch her. We tried for probably 2 hours if not more through overgrown grass and bushes and stagnant water. It was disgusting and so hot that day. We even recruited a whole group to help us. We decided that there was no way that she was going to trust us enough for us to catch her even with treats. She was way too fast even with a group of us and our usual "tricks." 

We are not allowed to use the live trap unless an animal has been spotted in the same location for an extended period of time (I hate this rule), but I felt like this was a different situation. I could tell that Niko was starving! You could see her ribs, and she would get just close enough to get the treats from the group. I decided to head home, grab the truck, and then pickup the live trap from the shelter. She needed our help.

I got the trap to the location, and we filled it with spam. 🤮 We waited a few more hours to see if she would go into the trap, so we didn't have to leave her overnight. However, she had disappeared due to the chasing and we hadn't seen her for an hour or so. We figured she was hiding somewhere in the overgrown grass. 

I got up early the next morning to check the trap, and there she was (second picture)! She was so scared and hungry. Animal control showed up to take her back to the shelter for me and do her intake. She was covered in ticks. This was her. Look at that sad face. 

This was Niko after a week at the animal shelter where they worked to medicate her and pluck off her ticks. Look at that face! She was so happy now. She knew she was loved and, finally, safe. 

I named her Niko. She became a favorite at the shelter, and was adopted out not too long after all this by an older gentleman. They love to go boating now, and Niko has her own life vest. When she isn't on the water, she likes to spend her time playing with his grandkids.

This is one of my favorite stories and dogs from the shelter ever. It's the whole reason for why I continue to volunteer at the shelter even with all the other things I have going on. 

-Sam