beans' Story

Photo: Nicole Cawlfield

Beans is a pure bred American Pit Bull Terrier who came from a backyard breeder where he was the last of his litter and the breeders were unable to sell him. He was kept isolated from people and dogs for the first 7 months of his life and suffered mentally because of it. The people who had Beans contacted Mid-America Bull Breed Rescue to take him, and the rescue agreed on the condition that both his mother and father be spayed and neutered resulting in no more puppies. They agreed, and Beans was welcomed into MABBR. He spent his first 8 months at MABBR in a loving foster home that nurtured his scared behavior. He was never able to face his fears and move on, but he learned to love unconditionally. Due to a move, that foster home was unable to keep him and we started fostering him. Within the first week, I knew I loved this dog and wanted to keep him. He had an unconditional love for everyone that he trusted to a fault. He was scared of everything he saw, heard or faced. We quickly enrolled him in a basic manners class that got him into a public forum and he did okay, not excelling by any means. Months later we began to see a change in his personality, he was gaining confidence. Not the confidence that you would encourage though, he would have these little panic attacks when approached by strangers, and in turn would act aggressively to his leash and we feared that he would eventually bite our hands when going after the leash.

We contacted a trainer who said he needed socialization. We enrolled him quickly at a doggy daycare where he enjoyed himself, and enrolled him in a dog training class at PetSmart hoping that being around that many people would help him get over his fears. He excelled in the training class because he has wonderful manners, and he did fine at his daycare until one day… There was a dog fight that broke out, and Beans was not involved, but he panicked and had an incident where he bit a person trying to handle him because he was so scared. He didn't break the skin and the women at the daycare weren't worried about him, but we were very concerned. We know the breed, and we know our responsibility to society because of our choice of breed, and having a APBT that is capable of harm to a human being is faced with a zero tolerance policy.

I had called Sean before the incident to work with Beans' fear and doorbell barking, but after his incident at daycare, we had made the traumatic decision to have Beans euthanized. We didn't come to this decision lightly and we spent an entire weekend crying and planning to lose our baby. We had set the date to have his doctor come to our house and euthanize him in our living room so that he wouldn't have to live his last moments shaking from fear of being in his vets office. I called Sean to cancel our training class and left a message for him on the voicemail.

Sean called me the day before Beans' appointment and I burst into tears on the phone saying we had no choice, and that our options had expired. We couldn't live with a human aggressive dog and that our responsibility is to society to have only well trained bully breed ambassadors. Sean took me through the events one by one of our reasons for euthanizing Beans and asked me if I wanted his professional opinion, and I reluctantly said "yes." He told me that Beans was not human aggressive but fear driven, and that with simple training we could help him through this. I listened as he set out a plan for Beans' rehabilitation that made perfect sense to me. I made Sean talk to my husband so that we were both on board. Sean asked me "can you just let me meet him and have one chance?" How do you say no to that?

Sean and Kristyn came over to our house the following Wednesday and met Beans. Kristyn ended up being our trainer because she specializes in behavior problems and gave us homework. We worked with him every single day and the next week she came back he was already greatly improved. Its been 2 months now, and Beans can walk past people on the sidewalk, he lets people come into our home while laying in his bed, and even let strangers pat him at various outings we have been to. He still has a long way to go, but Kristyn felt positive that we were able to do this on our own, with maintenance meetings with her every month or so.

Sean and Kristyn saved Beans' life. If he hadn't called me that night, we would have euthanized the absolute love of my life. Beans is only 3 and I can feel positive that he will live out his life with us, loved, spoiled and not afraid.

--The Hanses Family