Dog Likely Used As Alligator Bait Is All About Snuggles Now

The way Sweet Honey Brown craves the warmth of her favorite human’s bed, the snuggles of her stuffed toys — not to mention the bacon smoothies specially prepared for her —  tells the story of a dog who loves the softer things in life.

But the wound in her back, as well as the fact that a piece of her nose is missing, tells another kind of story.

 

The people who ended up giving Sweet Honey Brown a home think she was once used as alligator bait in the Florida Everglades.

“There’s no telling how old her injuries are,” her foster mom Rebecca Bell tells iHeartDogs.

But she has a theory.

“She had a ring through her nose and was dangled off a boat,” Bell says. “At some point, it ripped out and she was in the ‘Glades ever since.”

 

Even without a hook through her nose, a stray dog in the unforgiving Everglades is bait for all kinds of tragedy. Luckily for Sweet Honey Brown, she was picked up last month by Eddy Alvarez, whose rescue group, Eddy’s Dogs, specializes in helping local strays.

Alavarez got in touch with longtime rescue partner Sherri Lee Valvasori, founder of Royal Canadian Pooch Rescue,

“He is a true hero to the animals of the Everglades,” Valvasori tells iHeartDogs. “I drive the animals back to Canada. They go into Foster’s homes where we continue to nurse them back to health and find them forever homes.”

“For a dog, or any animal for that matter, the Everglades is a harsh place to abandon a dog,” she adds. “They not only have no food source they can very likely end up being the food source.”

For now, Sweet Honey Brown is in a foster home in Hamilton, Ontario, with Bell and her roommate,  Jim Fitzgerald Jr. — where it soon became obvious that the dog only wears her scars on the outside.

“It’s honestly surprising how well behaved she is and how good she is with children and other pets,” Jim Fitzgerald Jr. tells iHeartDogs.

Bell, who regularly fosters dogs brought to Canada from kill shelters across the U.S., says she’s never met a dog quite like Sweet Honey Brown.

“She is the sweetest, quietest, gentlest dog,” she says. “She’s  unbelievable. Everyone instantly falls in love with her. And she instantly falls in love with everyone.”

 

And from here on in, her road in life is going to be paved with nothing but sweetness. And bacon smoothies.

Update: Honey has been adopted from Royal Canadian Pooch Rescue.