MENTADOG

My name is Sabrina Blais, I am 24 years old and I have been passionate about animals my entire life. I’ve been around dogs all my life as my mom has her own at home doggy daycare. Most of my jobs have been revolved around animals; I’ve worked in a pet store and I worked at a doggy daycare facility where I learned a lot about canine behaviour, and I had the opportunity to work with different types of dogs.  

In July 2017, my boyfriend adopted his dog Shadow. Shadow is a shelter dog with quite the past even though he was just one year old when he was adopted. He went through three families before ours, all due to his high energy levels.  He had a big character and unfortunately at the age of one he didn't know how to act as he spent most of the beginning of his life in a cage. I didn't think I was going to invest myself so much in this dog, but due to my passion and my need to help the dogs, I had to step in. We worked on his resource guarding, his walks since he refused to walk, and we worked on his confidence with humans as he showed signs of abuse. Shadow allowed me to work on my patience and understand our limits. Today he is now six years old and is a completely different dog.

In April 2020, I adopted my dog Nala. I adopted Nala when she was four months old from a rescue that saved her and her siblings from the streets of Northern Manitoba. When I first met her, I knew that she would require a lot of work. She was terrified of walking in the streets, was unsure about new people, and was terrified of large dogs. Overall, she was an insecure puppy. Since she was a rescue, it was hard to know what traumas she went through before being transported here. Sadly, she suffered traumatic events during her critical phase of socialization. When I adopted her, I knew that I was late to her socialization period and that all those negative experiences were engraved in her mind. However, I knew that it was something I could work on with a lot of patience and perseverance. She is now four years old and we've had sum ups and downs but I've adapted to her needs and we are getting there one day at a time.