Stella revisited

Stella has been at the Toronto Animal Services South shelter for quite a while now and I did a post on her a few weeks back. She's a good dog once she gets to know a person. She's got some cage presentation issues with total strangers, however. That's probably not going to be a big deal once she's homed, since she's not going to be living in a cage all on her own, but for potential adopters, her in-shelter behaviour may be off-putting.

Here's a little video clip showing how she is.

(Previous to this video, I've only ever walked Stella once for about half an hour.)

The first part of the video shows me walking into the adoption room and up to Stella. She doesn't bark, though as I'm walking in I'm pretty sure she knows someone's in the room because she's constantly alert. I approach her door and she nicely sits in her kennel.

As I stand there, the door to the adoption room is opened by a new visitor. Stella can't see the visitor but knows immediately it's someone she doesn't know and starts barking. When the visitor peaks his head around the corner to have a look at her, she keeps barking. As soon as he leaves, she stops.

All this barking at strangers at the door may disappear on its own once she settles into a home or it can be trained out of her (although, personally, I like door alarms). Either way, I don't think it's a big enough deal to deter someone from giving her a chance if they're otherwise interested. She's a little shy but she's a very sweet dog.

Stella has been transferred to a foster home through TEAM Dog Rescue. She is available for adoption and you can get more info by contacting TEAM via their Facebook page.