Liberty’s Story

Liberty was a King Charles Spaniel who was rescued from a puppy mill, along with 500 other dogs, and was brought to the League for treatment, rehabilitation and ultimately adoption. Here is her story, as told by her adopter:
“Our household is my wife and I, three daughters and three dogs. A little over two years ago, we were watching the local news and saw a story about Virginia authorities removing 500 dogs from a puppy mill down in the southern part of the state.  When we saw the images of the deplorable, inhumane conditions in which these dogs were kept, it broke our hearts.  When we learned that Washington Animal Rescue League would be taking in a large share of these dogs, it didn’t take long to come to family decision that we should look into the possibility of giving one of them a permanent home.
 
When we went to WARL, we saw dogs in various stages of poor health and malnutrition because this was still the early stages of WARL’s diligent work in nursing them back to good physical health.  We found ourselves drawn to a little King Charles cavalier spaniel.  When we were given time at WARL to interact with her, we found a dog that was skin-and-bones because of malnourishment.  Her teeth were not properly developed and her paw pads weren’t normally calloused because of spending all of her time in a wire cage.  She was also very skittish around us (as WARL had warned the puppy mill dogs would be) and especially around me.  We suspect that was because the men who ran the puppy mill likely treated her very roughly.
 
Anyway, after performing their due diligence, WARL selected us to be the dog’s new parents.  Today, two years later, Liberty has transformed from an abused, frightened little dog into an affectionate, funny, even kind of goofy beloved member of the family.  It wasn’t always an easy process.  Housebreaking is a challenging task for dogs who live in cages in their own waste, and she had to learn that each of our three dogs have their own food bowls and she didn’t have to compete for available food as she did in the puppy mill.  But, today, she’s a little dog who wakes me up in the morning with kisses on the nose, who slams her paw down impatiently on the laptop keyboard when she thinks you’re not giving her enough attention and who noses her leash into the middle of the room to let you know she wants to go with you in the car.  She has been a delightful addition to the family.
 
And, I also want to say a special word about the people of the Washington Animal Rescue League, who give terrific care to the animals in their custody and who go to great pains to make sure those animals go to good homes.”

Here was Liberty at the League:
Here is Liberty in her new home: