7 Leadership Lessons I Learned from My Rescue Dog

by Lilla Faint

I didn’t want Heidi. But my family begged. I mean, they mounted a full campaign—daily stalking Petfinder.com, coming together and chanting “dog, dog, dog!” anytime we saw one on a walk, and making lots of promises to care for it.

It’s not like we hadn’t had dogs before. We had. And I loved them dearly. But that was the problem. In the course of three years, we had to make the difficult decision to say goodbye and usher three beloved pets across the rainbow bridge—Kaiser, our Great Pyrenees, who was 14 years old, died first. Then the next year, Mocha, our 18-year-old Persian kitty, and finally Rosie, our 10-year-old shepherd mix. The dogs were rescues—we’d had them since they were about a year old. They moved with us as we relocated across the nation in the Army and grew up with our children.

Surprise! My family won. In January 2021, Heidi walked into our lives. She is a rescue like our previous dogs, but unlike them, she was at least six years old when we got her—and she had a LOT of issues. However, four years in, I’ve learned so much more from her than from any of the previous pets I’ve ever had. Here’s some of her wisdom:

________________________________________

1. Eat your fruits and vegetables.

When we got Heidi in 2021, she was pretty thin and very food-motivated—not uncommon for a rescue. However, her favorite foods are fruits and vegetables, particularly carrots, cucumbers, bananas, and apples. We’ve always given treats to our dogs, and more than once I’ve been admonished by our vet to watch their weight.

Heidi has never had that problem. She’ll eat anything, but she is so happy to have a carrot in place of a bone. And so she gets one every day. I’m not a fan of vegetables, but as Heidi has gotten older, I can see how eating fruits and vegetables instead of dog treats and other “candy” has helped her stay younger and healthier than our other dogs were at her age. Her fur is still soft, and she only has a small bit of white on her lower muzzle. Her trim body doesn’t add extra weight to her aging joints.

She has had two major surgeries since we adopted her and now has Degenerative Myelopathy (the dog version of ALS). I don’t think she would have come through the surgeries as successfully as she has if she were overweight or not as nutritionally healthy. Nor would she be handling the DM as well as she is if she were heavier.

---

2. Get a job (and become great at it).

Heidi is a pet, not a working dog. She is a German Shepherd, though, and came to us with that GSD working mentality. As soon as she came inside for the first time, she immediately conducted a full security sweep of the house—including insisting that every closed door get opened so she could complete her inspection.

As her “person,” she has assigned herself as my personal protection team. She watches over me and alerts whenever I’m outside and someone comes within five miles of the house. When I leave, she takes up watch at the front door, and because she is deaf, she lies directly in the path of it opening so she can be sure to know when I get home.

She is not panicked when I leave and does not exhibit separation anxiety in any way. Rather, she has taken on the responsibility of watchful waiting—choosing to stay at the front door instead of her plush orthopedic bed, even if I am away overnight.

I often view work as a punishment or a necessary evil. I look for ways to get out of it or at least minimize how much I have to do. Heidi finds fulfillment and joy in her work and does it to the fullest, even when it’s not comfortable or fun.

---

3. Keep learning, especially when you’re old.

Heidi has not always been deaf. She came to us with severe, chronic ear infections. Three months after we adopted her, she needed major surgery to remove her middle ear on both sides. The surgeon said her eardrums were as hard as rocks.

Since the surgery, she has learned sign language. She can do more tricks and knows more commands than any of our other dogs combined—and continues to learn new ones even today.

---

4. Attitude is everything.

All we know of Heidi’s life before we adopted her is that she was found as a stray running the streets of south LA County in June 2020. A rescue center in New York took her in, and she was adopted out at least twice before she came to us in January 2021.

She hadn’t been spayed until she entered the rescue system and wasn’t well-socialized—very reactive to other dogs and unsure of runners, bicycles, and large groups of people. Not super conducive to our life on a military base.

When we adopted her, we didn’t realize she had so many issues, but we started working on each one once we saw how much trauma there was.

Last summer, she was diagnosed with mammary cancer and underwent surgery to remove three lumps. The recovery lasted two weeks and was very difficult since the lumps were on both sides and near her front and hind legs. Yet, she continued to love going outside on short walks and even tried to play ball the second day after surgery.

She has calmed down, too, and although she’s still wary of other dogs, she has learned to coexist with my in-laws’ dogs and is not bothered by bicycles, skateboards, runners, or groups of people passing by anymore.

She could be bitter and fearful—lashing out at anyone and everyone. And in some respects, she’s earned that right. She’s had a tough life and has been thrown some pretty unfair lumps her way. Yet, she is resilient and chooses to work, try, and remain grateful every day.

---

5. It’s OK to accept help (no matter how big and fierce you are).

Heidi hates being picked up. Since the onset of DM, she is slowly becoming paralyzed in her hind legs. Climbing stairs is becoming difficult, and she has fallen a few times on the four steps that lead out to our backyard.

I’ve started trying to support her by gently lifting her so she can climb without falling. At first, she flipped out and cried like a little toddler having a fit. But slowly, she recognized she wasn’t going to die and that I was helping her.

Now she waits at the bottom of the stairs and not only allows me to help her, but anyone in our family to gently lift her back legs so she can climb onto the porch and go inside.

---

6. Be a good follower (but don’t hesitate to put a weak leader in their place).

Heidi is not a dominant dog. She is quite happy to be a follower and let me take the Alpha lead. But she is not an Omega either. She is the quiet leader who backs up the boss and makes sure things run smoothly in the background.

She instinctively senses weakness and will take advantage of it. When we first got her, our youngest daughter was 13 years old and tried to treat her like a cuddly lab. She wanted to be her friend and didn’t provide any structure or discipline for Heidi.

Heidi walked all over her and did not respect her. She even mouthed her once when Shannon and I were both petting her at the same time.

With some work and better understanding of how dogs think, Shannon has become a secondary Alpha to Heidi. When I am not home, Heidi responds best to her and even takes on some of the personal protection postures for Shannon as she does for me. My husband and older daughter, while respected and firmly part of the pack, are on their own, however.

---

7. Don’t be afraid to trust again…and again. Fiercely.

Cling to your pack when there’s disappointment or hard times instead of running away from them. We often joke that we should have named Heidi “Shadow” because of how much she follows me around.

Some of this is due to her self-appointed job. Some is her deafness and dependence on us to assist her, especially when we are out and about. She could choose to look at the world as a fearful and scary place, hiding from every uncomfortable situation thrown her way.

Instead, she has persevered and embraced the challenges given to her, boldly stepping out every day in confidence, knowing we are by her side to the end.

_____________________________________

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.