LAKEPORT — Meredith Lahmann wasn”t expecting to adopt a dog when she began volunteering at Lake County Animal Care and Control.
“I had lost my dog of 16-and-a-half years,” Lahmann said. “I had said, ?I”m never going to cry over another dog.””
Lahmann, 60, began volunteering at animal control following her retirement after 34 years of teaching. She wanted to do it to be close to animals while still keeping some distance.
“I saw all these cute little dogs and I said, ?Oh, you need a home but it”s not going to be mine. I hope you get one,”” she said.
All that changed from the moment she met “Hope.”
Hope is a female Maltese, three-and-a-half years old. Lahmann said Hope came to animal control in September 2010 after being rescued during a raid by animal control officers at a Santa Rosa home. Hope had been left unattended in an unclean backyard chicken coop, surrounded by her own filth.
Hope”s white coat was mostly gone. She was malnourished.
“She was the most pitiful thing,” Lahmann said. “But she just was beautiful to me.”
Lahmann asked to hold Hope. “That was my mistake, or my blessing,” she said. “She was so frightened of everything. She was just trembling.”
Lahmann said Hope leaned her head against her shoulder and sighed. “I thought, ?Oh no! Now I”m lost!”” she said, while laughing.
Lahmann took “Flower Pot” (as Hope was called upon arriving at animal control) out onto the grass to help the dog become unafraid.
“When I first put her down, she kept lifting her feet up off the grass as if it burned,” Lahmann said. “She didn”t understand at all. So I would pick her up and comfort her and I sat on the grass with her.”
Lahmann worked with her on becoming accustomed to grass, ultimately helping the dog overcome her fear. “By the time she was walking around on the grass, I decided I would adopt her,” she said.
Lahmann found out there was an application to adopt Flower Pot ahead of her own. “I started to cry,” she said. “I had gotten attached.”
A friend of Lahmann”s reminded her there was a possibility the applicants wouldn”t take the dog. “She said, ?don”t give up hope, they might not take her,”” Lahmann said.
Upon learning the dog wasn”t house-broken, the applicants chose not to adopt her, leaving it open for Lahmann to adopt Flower Pot.
“I said, ?I”ll house-train her,”” she said.
Lahmann called her friend to tell her the good news and discuss a name for Flower Pot.
“She said, ?Well, you already have a name. You never gave up hope,”” Lahmann said. The name stuck.
Because of the abuse by her previous owner, Hope had developed a fear of people, which is unusual for Maltese dogs, Lahmann said.
“They were only bred to be companions,” she said.
Lahmann began to slowly work through the dog”s fear by first taking her to the Kelseyville Pear Festival. Lahmann also house trained Hope using the “umbilical cord method.” The method consists of attaching the dog leash to the owner”s belt and walking around with them everywhere.
People would always ask to hold Hope and at first the dog was hesitant, Lahmann said. As time has gone by, Lahmann said Hope has become better with people holding and petting her.
One of Lahmann”s neighbors is a dog trainer and she gave Lahmann helpful tips and advice for getting Hope more accustomed to people, becoming a house dog and getting over separation anxiety.
Lahmann started by placing Hope in her crate and then walk out of the dog”s sight and then walk back. Next, she would go to the front door, put her hand on the knob and then sit down.
“I must have done that 30, 40 times a day,” she said.
The next step was to open the door and stand outside and come back inside. Later she would count to five before coming back inside.
“My neighbors must have thought I was crazy,” she said, referring to the repeated steps she went through each day. After about four months, Hope settled into her new life.
Lahmann continued to seek out venues for Hope”s training. She took her to obedience classes where they taught her to not react to distractions, such as the loud noise of a garbage truck.
One big reason Lahmann continued to train Hope was because she had developed psoriatic arthritis last year and began having difficulty in picking things up and grasping.
“It was just a few months ago that I started training her how to pick things up (because I) was having a difficult time with the arthritis,” she said.
Lahmann said Hope had no fetch instinct but, working together with the obedience class instructor, she began to learn how to pick things up for Lahmann. Months later, she could pick up nearly any item at which Lahmann points.
Because Hope had been trained to help Lahmann, she qualified under state law to be certified as a service dog. Hope wears a special gold tag denoting this certification. She is the 13th dog in the county to be a certified service dog.
Lahmann said she is grateful for Hope and she encourages people to adopt rescue dogs.
“Understand they will come with baggage, but if you take the time to love them and train them and be patient with them, they”re just wonderful pets and just seem to be so much more devoted,” she said.
Kevin N. Hume can be reached at kevin.n.hume@gmail.com or call directly 263-5636 ext. 14.
