Search and Rescue in training · Shoot the Dog, Volume Four, page 81
Gibson, the rescued dog training to rescue others
Some rescue stories end on the couch. Gibson's page in Shoot the Dog, Volume Four goes somewhere else entirely.
It starts where a lot of them start, with a frightened young dog in a shelter:
It's been four years since this once timid boy was rescued from a shelter where he struggled to survive Parvo virus.
Parvo is a serious virus in puppies, and plenty do not come through it. Gibson did. In the four years after he went home, his page says, he "flourished to become a social, outgoing, and very loved boy".
From rescued to rescuer
Then the page takes its turn. Gibson was in training as a Search and Rescue dog, and doing well at it:
he flies through each Search and Rescue milestone in his bid to become a fully fledged SAR Dog.
His page gives the credit where it belongs, to "the dedication of his owner, who saw the potential in his tiny, timid form". It also says something about her that we liked even more. She may have rescued him, and he will go on to rescue others, but "his love and support rescue her on a daily basis".
The look of a dog with a job
Look at the portrait above. Paws up on the back of the chair, ears soft, mouth open, eyes on the camera and waiting for the next instruction. It is hard to see the timid shelter pup in there, and that is the point of the page. It ends with a line that could sit over the door of every rescue group in the country:
frequently the rescued goes on to become the rescuer.
Rescue at the heart of it
Every family photographed for Shoot the Dog paid a $100 participation fee, and all of it went directly to an animal rescue group. Where the $100 went tells that story, and names the five rescues.