William still isn’t over what he’s been through.
Just a day after being rescued from a Los Angeles shelter, he’s still glaring and growling at every hand that gets too close.
But can you blame this little dog?
He was found still guarding his owner who had passed away. William may have been keeping that heartbreaking vigil for a week.
When he was finally discovered and taken to the shelter, things managed to get even darker. Staff there deemed him aggressive and placed him on the euthanasia list.
Cherie Durand could see that coming a mile away.
“If I was a dog, I’d go straight to death row, by their standards,” she tells iHeartDogs. “If I’m homeless, hungry, cold and frightened, and you find me and catch me with a catch pole, and then throw me in a box and drive me somewhere strange, and then throw me in a cage, where strangers are poking and prodding at me — I’m surrounded by screaming, crying dogs like I’m in Shawshank — and my family is nowhere to be found, I’m going to be scared and aggressive.
“I’m going to go straight to death row”
As founder of Anchors Up Rescue Group, Durand knows exactly where William’s coming from. So, when she heard about the little dog’s situation, she intervened and took him into her care.
Make no mistake. William is still howling mad. But look a little closer at those eyes, and you’ll see something more than rage — a kind of bottomless pain.
But there is a bottom to pain. And William’s already showing signs that he will come around.
Like how he edges close to lap up water offered to him in a bowl — even as he interrupts the moment to growl at the helping human hand.
Durand isn’t too worried. She’s seen William’s type before. She sees the Williams of the world as her calling. Since last June, her group has rescued 126 dogs — relying entirely on donations.
“I don’t pull the cute adoptable 6-month-old dogs,” she says. “I pull all the seniors with physical mental and emotional problems. Usually they’re hurt or ailing in some way.”
Besides, William may not know it yet, but his happy ending is already on its way.
“He’s being adopted by a woman who had a 17-year-old dog just like him who just passed away,” Durand says. “She said he was the same way and she wants to nurse him back to health and help him to decompress.”
That means William can take all the time in the world to rage against the end of his old life — because there’s another dawn waiting to break.
