Hope For Paws received a call about a stray dog who’d spent the last nine months living at an elementary school. She was afraid of people and wouldn’t approach anyone, but the students were able to feed her watermelon.

Katie McKittrick and JoAnn Wiltz set out for rescue, and the dog was very hungry but still very hesitant to trust humans. They would have to use food to lure her over to the gentle snare knowing the moments of stress that were about to come would be totally worth it in the end.

They named her Lilac and worked on gaining her trust before putting her in the crate for transport back to the hospital. They found her fur was full of thorns and foxtails, and an X-ray revealed she’d been shot by a pellet gun. She never showed any signs of aggression but didn’t trust anyone and just sat in the corner.

After her procedure, Lilac went on to be trained with Board and Behave, and it was there that she had a breakthrough; She approached someone new for the first time, and it was Tanja that Lilac ended up choosing to become her owner! Just look at her now. 🙂