When we first met Kobi, I looked into his eyes and saw nothing. A blank expression was all that met with my gaze, he would not make eye contact, and would not even try to focus on his environment. Absolutely no interest in humans whatsoever. His little body carried him around, but his vacant expression showed no life at all. I had a horrid sick feeling in my stomach when I envisaged what might have happened to him in his short life. We will never know what he experienced, we just know all to well the coping mechanisms he had cleverly adopted in order to survive what ever was going on around him.
We knew it would be a challenge to bring a sparkle into his eyes, we had space in our pack for another dog, and we wanted to give a lost dog a new life. A life that would include being part of an amazing pack, eating fabulous food, huge amounts of exercise, even his very own bunk bed!
If I am honest, it was that vacant expression that sold little Copper (as he was then known) to me. Something told me that if this dog was to become what he wanted to be, then his best chance was to share our life. I felt that there was something very special inside his little shell, one of those gut feeling as evidence all around me was to the contrarary.
He was completely petrified of humans. To the point of freezing and completely shutting down if a human got too close. When he froze one could have done anything to him and I don't think he would have ever reacted. Dogs he understood and was fine with, humans he did not trust and did not want to have anything to do with. He was extremely underweight and had been flea and worm ridden when first handed into the dog rescue. Apparently he was found on the streets, but it was generally felt by the rescue center the people that "found him" were actually his owners. His original foster owners had performed a wonderful job of cleaning him, feeding and trying to connect with him. He quickly gained weight while living with them, but would not interact with them, preferring to spend most of each day in a cage, even though the door was wide open.
When we brought him home he quickly settled into his cage, it was his little safe haven, which we respected and would not infringe upon "his space". When he did come out of his cage if either Ian or myself went within 10 feet of him he bolted into another room. We had to wait until he was in a corner before we could clip a lead onto his collar, just to take him a walk. If we looked at him he would cower and drop to the floor.
We considered that he might be very ill or possibly be handicapped in some way. He had not pain responses and his reactions (or rather lack of) to certain stimuli lead us to consider this train of thought. He seemed fascinated with his own paws as they moved, almost as if they were a live animal that he could chase. It looked like he did not realise they were his own. Baby puppies I can understand show this type of bahaviour, as they learn about themselves and their bodies, but at possibly ten months he appeared to old for this immature behaviour.
