I will keep Spenser safe with me and I am not comfortable moving him unless there is a home that is better than me. If not, no one can have my boy. We have made TOO much progress. Even bossy Bonnie likes him now.

06/30/03 -

"Spenser (formerly Duke) Immediate Foster Care Needed.
Experienced handler necessary. Please contact Dawn
Karam @ gkaram18@aol.com."

06/07/03 -

Spenser had been renamed from Duke while in foster care, it fits him very nicely.

Spenser spent several weeks with a trainer and did extremely well. He is a very bright boy that is a champ at basic commands. He has been in foster care with 3 other Boxers since April 24th, and is doing very well in Foster care. He is living in a household with no children and has not had a lot of visitors. 

The dominant female Boxer in his Foster home hasn't been friendly towards Spenser, but he has not noticed or reacted to her. He gets along very well with the 3 year old and 8 year old male Boxers, and is walked with the 8 year old Boxer on a regular basis. He has quite a charming personality and LOVES to play with squeaky toys, tennis balls and rope toys. 

In the month that he has been in his current Foster home, he has really come out of his shell and gotten very close to his Foster Family. Spenser goes to work with his Foster Mom and their 3 year old male Boxer every day. He initially gets very over stimulated when people arrive at the office. His Foster Mom has been teaching him "Quiet" and is working on desensitizing him to reacting to people being at the door at her office and at her home. This desensitization should continue, when he is adopted to a permanent home. Spenser has met many men while going on walks at the office during the day, but has barked at women lately. His Foster Mom has discussed this behavior with a Veterinary Behaviorist, to see if there is a way to understand this reaction. Spenser can be easily over-stimulated and responds very well to being redirected when given a basic command like "sit". His Foster Mom has successfully used a program of carrying a small squeaky toy on their walks, and if Spenser becomes over stimulated by a person, another dog or a squirrel, his Foster Mom gets his attention, and gives him the toy to carry. Once Spenser has taken on the "job" of carrying the toy, they are able to resume their walk. 

Spenser is a loving, sweet, intelligent boy, with a lot of love to give. He needs to be placed with an experienced handler that can provide the structure, mental and physical stimulation that he needs.

03/23/03 - 

Here are a couple of photos we have of Spencer.  He is a seriously handsome guy as you can see. There is no resemblance between the little guy on the site and this fine fellow.

03/15/03 -

Spencer is past his food aggressive, has put on some weight and doing well in that area.  

But he is in a foster that has its business in its home. There are too many people there and he needs a foster without a lot of traffic. He can be fearful of new people and we need to work with him on this. We would like a foster without kids and with a female dog, if any. No cats since we are unsure. 

Please help him, he has had a very rough start to his young life, and has no where else to go. 

01/26/03 - "Renamed Spenser, this little guy is hardly recognizable as the scrawny runt which came here about a week ago. Perhaps the thinnest animal I have ever seen, he made a greyhound look overfed. When you have been literally starving to death, it is no wonder, I suppose, that you would be aggressive in situations where you thought what food you had was being taken away. The problem may not be fixed but is much less of a concern.

To give his system time to adjust, in the first few days he was fed a small amount about every 3-4 hours of large breed puppy chow with some added pasta. In days his skin was no longer stretched tight on the bones and there is the beginning of muscle tone in his rear quarters, neck and shoulders. He is now down to a twice a day routine and, while he is still very quiet, he is obviously feeling much better. He is still thin and does not have the boxer barrel chest yet but his face is bigger and he begins to have the classic boxer stance. 

Due to the food aggression, at the beginning all his meals - and ours - were prepared out of his sight. Gradually, having always fed him first, I have been able to eat with him in the room. There has been no begging or signs of aggression. Last evening, I felt comfortable enough actually to prepare his meal with him around. He was somewhat excited but really no more than any of my other boxers at mealtime.

He seems to have had very little, if any, training but he is bright and eager to please. The tail goes into full motion very readily and he learning standard commands - sit, shake, stay, go to bed etc. I suspect he may have been tied up for long periods of time and/or someone made overly aggressive use of a choke collar because when he pulls on the leash, he has a croup-type cough. One of our other boxers made the same noise in the similar situation. That dog had been removed from a badly abusive environment and, among many other things, his throat was seriously damaged. Spenser is not nearly so bad but, while it is far too big as yet, we may need to use Buddy's old collar for the long walks.

01/18/03 - Duke is in need of a very patient home to work with him on his food aggression problem.  He is super skinny, and apparently had to struggle to survive his first year.  This guy needs his first real break in life.  Are you that special someone?

01/10/03 - Duke

Duke is a neutered (just yesterday) brindle boxer boy. He is very shy and quiet right now. He was picked up as a stray in PA and brought to a local shelter where he had to stay for a week due to the holidays and the number of days an owner has the opportunity to claim him.

His time was up yesterday and we put him in our kennel until he can go into foster. He seems very sweet and likes attention. He appears to be young around 1yrs.old. He is cropped and docked and in need of a break.

Please help Duke. We will try him with other dogs and the cat at our vets office that greets every dog upon arrival. We will update as we get more info..Scranton boxerrescue

If you are interested in adopting this dog, please fill out an online application first.  Then e-mail the contact below.  Be sure to include your full name, city, state, and area code in the subject line of your message.

Home | Adoption Application |Available Dogs | Contact | Sitemap
Northeastern Boxer Rescue is a non-profit, charitable 501(c)(3) organization