Meet Archer!

From Archer's mom:

I was scrolling through Facebook on a lunch break at work when a video from the Gwinnett County Animal Control page caught my eye. It was this short, uncoordinated, white and tan pitbull on their “death row” post. I clicked on the link and watched the video maybe ten times in a row while crying my eyes out. His “description” read - Male Pitbull - 2 years old, found stray. And at the bottom- “Will do anything for a good ole tennis ball.” 

He was on the urgent list as the shelter was filling up and he had been passed over due to his “aggressive breed” We went up to the shelter the very next day to meet him. They brought him out and the shelter worker stated “He pees on everything so be careful.” He led us out to the fenced in, concrete play yard with tennis ball in hand and anxiously waited to meet him. 

A few moments later the door swings open and this filthy, wide eyed pitbull is dragging the animal control officer down the sidewalk. 

At first I was hesitant. He sat and he let us rub his head and he chased the tennis ball. Then he flops over for a belly rub. We fell in love. We spent a few more minutes with him and then went to fill out the adoption paperwork. That was that. He was to join our family! 

We brought him home a few days later after his adoption process was complete. At first he had absolutely no personality. He was basically “institutionalized” No tail wags, no cuddles, nothing - he simply just watched what everyone else was doing. He did however love our other two rescue dogs Ellie Mae and Dexter. They got along great from the start- which comforted me. He had a huge brown stain around his neck which I was guessing was stained from a large leather collar. That took a few weeks to get the stain completely out of his fur.

I’ll never forget when his personality started to peek through. About a month after we adopted him, in the middle of the night he was having what I can only assume was a nightmare. He kept crying and barking in his sleep. He woke up, walked to my side of the bed and nudged me with his nose. I patted his head, told him everything was going to be fine and he walked back to his bed and went to sleep. It’s like he knew he was safe. After that night we noticed him wanting to be around us more, then the tail wags began- a completely different dog from that first day. He’s been a huge part of our family and we can’t imagine life without him!