Although she doesn't look like it, Venus's mom was a Great Pyrenees who spent her life in the pasture guarding goats. She apparently had a rendezvous with the neighbor's Pointer, and 2 months later delivered a litter of puppies in the pasture.  The Pyrenees was owned by an elderly couple who never handled the pups or socialized them in any way. Over time, the pups grew up and some disappeared, leaving just three growing up to become adults. The elderly owners reached the point where they could no longer remain at home, so when they went into congregate care, a kind friend of the owners started feeding the dogs and asked a local vet what should be done about these remaining three feral dogs, who were almost 5 years old at this point. The vet was an old country vet who clearly had old school ways of thinking, as he said "You'll never catch 'em. Just shoot 'em." The kind friend was heartbroken to discover later that the vet had apparently made the same recommendation to someone else, who took it as a challenge, and managed to shoot one of the three remaining dogs. At that point, the friend called a local rescuer to ask for help, hoping to save the other girls. The rescuer came in, assessed the situation, and called in professional trappers. It took months to get the last two dogs into a trap, but the moment they did, the dedicated rescuer drove to Windsong Ranch in the middle of the night to bring the girls into Bluebonnet Animal Rescue.

One of the sisters has a shiny black coat, and the first name that came to us was Black Beauty. But we already had a dog in our rescue named Beauty, so we named her Venus, after the goddess of beauty. Once we had chosen that name for her, since we had a pair of sisters, it was an easy leap to the name Serena for the mostly white dog.

Weeks turned into months, and the sisters grew accustomed to life in one of our barn kennels (each of which has a 32' long dog run). They smiled and wagged their tails every time they saw me, but they would not allow me to get close enough to touch them. Except during thunderstorms, fireworks, and days when our neighbors were either hunting or having target practice in the empty pasture adjacent to ours. The girls are terrified of this type of loud noise, and during those events, I could sit in the kennel with them and pet them. They were literally shaking with fear.

We finally decided that they were not going to make enough progress for me to get a leash on them to take them to the vet, so one at a time, I caught each girl and paid the price with scratches on my arms and legs, as the girls were still completely terrified of human touch. I loaded each girl into a crate and took her to the vet's office, where we carried the crate inside, and the vet sedated the dog while still in the crate. Then after surgery, they put the still sleeping dog back in the crate and back in the van, and home we went. At home, we carried the crate into the house and put it into our "dog infirmary" which used to be our guest bedroom but has served MANY more dogs than humans through the years. The bedroom has sliding doors that open to a patio, which has a fence to keep it separated from the rest of the yard. We put a strip of fake grass at the edge of the patio to serve as their potty area, and the bedroom and patio became the new home for Venus and Serena. Over time, with lots of treats (and patience), the girls reached the point where they would allow us to pet them, and they learned to sleep in a crate at night.

The next stage in their journey of learning "how to dog" was to move to a foster home, again, one at a time, where they learned to walk on a leash. We were quite frankly amazed at how well they did! Each girl seemed to really blossom once they were in different homes, so we're guessing that as long as they had each other, they were less concerned about making attachments to people, and they were feeding each other's fear.

Venus and Serena will always be shy, to the point that they are skittish with new people and new situations. But they will each make a wonderful companion in the right home. They get along with other dogs. They have nice manners in the house. They enjoy taking leash-walks. We hope the right adopter comes along and sees the beauty and sweetness in these girls that we have come to know and love.

Read about our adoption process and submit your application on our website https://www.bluebonnetrescue.org/info/adoption.