Transforming Troubled Pups

Bowie had been in a rescue’s care for five months when dog trainer Anthony Sorosky got the call. The German Shepherd needed a vet but nobody could get the traumatized dog into a car. A leash alone would send him into a chaotic frenzy.

“If I throw a leash around this poor dog and haul him into my van it will just add to his trauma,” Sorosky says. So he sat with the rescue staff and taught them another way – slow and steady. First, Bowie dragged a rope everywhere. After three weeks of caring treatment, a fence went up from the kennel to the van and Sorosky’s pack of dogs ran through the gate as Bowie followed from the kennel to the van. Before heading to the vet, Sorosky’s team drove Bowie to the mountains and spent hours showing the dog a new way to look at life. Fifty-nine days after their first visit, Bowie sat calmly through his first trip to a vet. Now, Bowie is living a happy life in his forever home. 

Sorosky has trained dogs in Santa Barbara for 15 years, including the past nine years running his own for-profit business, Montecito Dog. Now, his 501(c)(3) nonprofit Canine Rescue Resource (CRR) has been created to help even more. This organization provides pro bono training to rescue organizations struggling with deeply traumatized dogs like Bowie. 

Santa Barbara has close to 50 dog rescue groups budgeting about $500 to get each dog transitioned from a shelter into a forever home. But when a dog arrives traumatized, Sorosky says, “That expense could escalate substantially if that dog can’t be placed into a home. Those are the dogs CRR wants to help.” 

Think Differently

Sorosky’s approach is intuitive and straightforward: it’s about focusing on the way dogs think. “I don’t start by trying to get dogs to do something different. First I want the dog to think something different,” he says. Sorosky and his trained staff of seven provide highly individualized, trauma-informed rehabilitation for the most distressed dogs, so rescue organizations don’t unwittingly adopt them out to homes and owners ill-equipped to handle them.

CRR is built on three pillars: education, training, and financial assistance. When asked, the organization will help educate rescue staff to better address behavioral challenges, provide professional training for rescue dogs whose needs exceed a rescue’s resources, and offer financial assistance when the cost of a troubled canine threatens to overwhelm a rescue organization. 

Sorosky never wants to go back to the moment that inspired the creation of Canine Rescue Resource when he encountered a young girl living in her car with three dogs she had “saved” from a rescue. The dogs were so traumatized she couldn’t find a landlord who would rent to her. “It didn’t break my heart,” Sorosky remembers. “It pissed me off.”