- 8 minutes ago
Joy arrives from Bulgaria completely terrified, and the challenge is getting a shut-down rescue dog to feel safe enough to trust her new home. With the pack waiting outside, the day becomes a careful, emotional rescue journey: introducing calm dogs one by one, reading every tiny reaction, feeding six dogs separately, and giving Joy all the space she needs to decompress.
As the hours pass, she stays outside, watches the other rescues, and slowly begins to show a little curiosity around people and dogs. But when night falls, the real test begins, and the attempt to get her inside turns into a stressful, heartbreaking moment that had to be handled for her safety. This is raw dog rescue, rehabilitation, and first-day decompression with a nervous little dog who is still learning that she is safe.
Created for fans of dog rescue videos, nervous rescue dog rehabilitation, decompression after adoption, and emotional animal rescue stories, this is a calm but tense rescue journey with real behavior work, pack introductions, and trust-building. If you enjoy rescue dog transformation, shelter-to-home progress, and first night rescue care, this is a strong search match for dog rescue documentary-style content and animal rehabilitation storytelling.
As the hours pass, she stays outside, watches the other rescues, and slowly begins to show a little curiosity around people and dogs. But when night falls, the real test begins, and the attempt to get her inside turns into a stressful, heartbreaking moment that had to be handled for her safety. This is raw dog rescue, rehabilitation, and first-day decompression with a nervous little dog who is still learning that she is safe.
Created for fans of dog rescue videos, nervous rescue dog rehabilitation, decompression after adoption, and emotional animal rescue stories, this is a calm but tense rescue journey with real behavior work, pack introductions, and trust-building. If you enjoy rescue dog transformation, shelter-to-home progress, and first night rescue care, this is a strong search match for dog rescue documentary-style content and animal rehabilitation storytelling.
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AnimalsTranscript
00:00We really didn't want it to come to this.
00:03When you see a dog this scared, I'll be honest, you do start questioning yourself.
00:08Is it too little, too late?
00:10I mean, just look at her tail.
00:12It's tucked so far underneath her, you can barely even see it.
00:16And kind of ironically, her name is Joy.
00:18But right now, she couldn't be any further from it.
00:21But stick around, because we're going to try absolutely everything we can to help her.
00:26And with our entire pack by her side, I just hope it isn't too late.
00:32So this is the first time we met her.
00:34It's currently 6.30 in the morning, and Joy has just travelled all the way from Bulgaria.
00:39So the priority now is to get her home and into the garden.
00:43But settling her into a pack of six dogs is going to be difficult.
00:47Usually, I'd have my wife Ella here to help.
00:50But she's away at the moment, which means today, this rescue is completely down to me.
00:55Right, so I'm going to bring her straight to the other side of the fence.
01:04Because my guess is she'll be quite scared.
01:11So obviously, I'd rather bring her straight to the other side.
01:18So that now she can come out.
01:20There you go.
01:22Come out in your own time.
01:25Oh, here she is.
01:30She's really scared.
01:33She's absolutely tired.
01:35Obviously, it's kind of hard to tell right now because you can't see any other dog.
01:41Look how tucked her tail is, bless her.
01:43I'm going to give her lots and lots of distance so that she doesn't feel overwhelmed.
01:49You literally can barely see her tail.
01:51She's got like an overbite and it's the most adorable thing I've ever seen.
01:56I'm going to give her a bit of time before she meets, what is it, five dogs?
02:02Poor thing.
02:03Yeah, she's just completely unsure what to do.
02:07Hopefully, bringing the other dogs in will help her be a bit more confident.
02:11So I'm going to bring out one of our rescues because they're pretty calm and it's weird.
02:16Rescues can kind of tell like when there are the rescues.
02:18She really needed that wee.
02:20So let me go and get one of our other rescues and hopefully that perks her up a little bit.
02:24All right.
02:25Go on, Moki out.
02:26Trixie, come on.
02:26Cindy, one of you.
02:27Come on.
02:28Trixie, come on.
02:28Come on, Trixie.
02:29Come on, Cindy.
02:31No.
02:31Cindy, come.
02:32Come on, just one.
02:33Come on.
02:34Come on, Cindy.
02:35Come on, Cindy.
02:36Good girl.
02:37So Cindy is one of our previous rescues.
02:40But don't worry, she hasn't been returned.
02:42We're just looking after her whilst her owner is on vacation.
02:45Cindy has come out.
02:47Oh, but I think she's more scared of me.
02:50She looks a little bit curious about the dog.
02:52You can see Cindy's actually quite scared.
02:54Oh, is she having a poo?
02:55Oh, that's good.
02:56Oh, that's really good.
02:58The fact that she's coming over.
02:59Oh, here we go.
03:00Oh, she's scared.
03:02All but curious.
03:04I've got to stay very still here because she's really scared of when I move.
03:07I don't want to move too much.
03:09Maybe I'll go on her side of the gate, see what she's like.
03:12There you go.
03:13She's showing a bit of interest.
03:14I think me standing behind her is probably scaring her.
03:18Let me come in front of her so that she can at least see where I am.
03:22Okay, I think I'm going to let Cindy through because she didn't show anything negative.
03:26So let me just open this.
03:28I'm not sure she will come through.
03:30All right.
03:30I've got to be careful here just because I don't want...
03:33If Joy gets through, it's going to be pretty hard to get her back in.
03:37Cindy, you need to help me out here, please.
03:40Come on, Cindy.
03:43Come on, Cindy.
03:44Come on, Lynn.
03:45There we go.
03:46All right.
03:48Well done, Cindy.
03:49To be honest, Joy just looks a lot more concerned about me than anything else.
03:54I wonder if she's similar to some of the other rescues we have where she's really scared of people but
03:59fine with dogs.
04:01Oh, she's completely unbothered.
04:03Oh, she's coming up to me.
04:05Yeah, she is curious of me, just unsure.
04:09I'm going to actually bend down because she does keep coming up to me and I'm just standing up till
04:13right now.
04:14I'm just going to put my hand out.
04:15This is good because although she's scared, she's showing some signs of wanting to trust.
04:20I won't go near her or anything. If she wants to go and sniff it, that's okay.
04:24Because I've realised I'm obviously quite tall, especially compared to her.
04:27She's absolutely tiny, bless her.
04:30Okay, so Joy right now is actually next to me.
04:33Obviously, no reaction to Cindy, which is really good.
04:37So, I'm going to bring out, I think, Moki because Moki's big and a lot more...
04:43She'll show a lot more interest.
04:46That'll be more interesting to see how she is.
04:47Hopefully, still fine.
04:48So, let me go and get our crazy Doberman Moki.
04:51Okay, Moki, come.
04:53Don't worry, you two, you're next.
04:56Go on then.
04:58Right, much bigger dog this time.
05:00Oh, she's running away.
05:03Again, that could be because of me.
05:05Yeah, she looks a lot more unsure now.
05:08Right, I'm going to come on to this side.
05:10Because I honestly think that half the time she's scared of me over the dog.
05:17First sniffer, Cindy.
05:19She isn't doing a whole lot.
05:21So, I'm going to let Moki through.
05:23Like I said, Moki's a lot more intense though.
05:25So, I will stay here.
05:27Come on then.
05:30Oh, yeah, she's scared.
05:32Moki, come.
05:33Moki, come.
05:33Moki, come.
05:36Showed her teeth.
05:38Didn't go to bite her or anything though.
05:39Honestly, I think just the size of Moki scared her.
05:42But that happens a lot because, bless her, she's just so big.
05:46Every dog's always scared of her when they first meet.
05:48Especially the little ones.
05:50Moki's getting a good sniff of her crate.
05:51What's interesting is the fact that she didn't act that way at all with Cindy.
05:57Luckily, the other dogs that we've got are pretty unbothered.
06:00She does look like she wants to be near me.
06:07It's okay if you don't want pets.
06:09Okay, so anytime Moki's kind of going near her, she's showing her teeth.
06:16What actually helps is she really smells.
06:19So, Moki doesn't really want to go near her.
06:21I think she wanted to go near her just to have a sniff and get to know her.
06:24But because she smells, she does not want to go near her now.
06:27Moki is honestly the strangest dog ever.
06:29She's a complete clean freak.
06:31And sometimes the rescues arrive smelling, well, pretty awful.
06:35Moki's nose definitely does not approve.
06:38I think Moki's probably like the craziest one out of all of them to meet.
06:42Even though she seems pretty tired, to be honest, right now.
06:44So, I'm going to go and get our other rescue, Trixie.
06:48Because, again, she is nice and calm.
06:50And hopefully Joy will be okay with her.
06:53Okay.
06:54Moki, wait.
06:54Trixie.
06:55Come on, Trixie.
06:55Come on, Trixie.
06:57Come on, Trixie, girl.
06:58Come on, Moki.
06:59Come on, Crabby, yeah.
07:00Come on, Trixie.
07:00Come on, come on.
07:01Good boy.
07:02Wait there.
07:02Wait.
07:04Okay.
07:05Here comes Trixie.
07:06Come on.
07:07Trixie.
07:07Trixie is very unbothered about other dogs.
07:12She's a lot more confident with Moki when she's on the other side of the gate.
07:15Tell you what I'm going to do.
07:17I'm going to put Moki back inside because then I think it'll be easier for Trixie to come out.
07:22Okay.
07:22I've put Moki inside so that hopefully I can get Trixie to come through the gate.
07:27Come on, Trixie.
07:29Come on.
07:31You're wagging your tail.
07:32Come on.
07:33If not, I'm going to go and get Coby.
07:35This is so much harder to do without Ella.
07:37Come on.
07:38You can do it.
07:40Okay, Trixie's too scared.
07:42So I'm going to go and get Coby.
07:44Now, he should be interesting because he's really good at being able to tell if a dog is scared or
07:48not.
07:48So I'm going to go and get Coby and let's see how he does.
07:51Coby.
07:52Oh.
07:53Good boy.
07:54Oh, Coby's ready.
07:56Look at all the other dogs following it.
07:59Joy's probably like, how many dogs is there to meet?
08:03She's probably like, they just keep coming out one by one.
08:05So Joy was actually rescued with her sister in Bulgaria and she actually became best friends with one of the
08:11rescue owners.
08:12Apparently even sitting on her lap.
08:14So we know there is a trusting dog in there.
08:17We just need to help her find it.
08:19I'm going to let Coby through because I trust Coby and he's very good with the dogs.
08:23Right, come on, Coby.
08:31I love how they're all going to have a sniff of her crate.
08:34Yeah, look, she's following me.
08:37Right, this is exactly why I wanted to do Coby.
08:42Because I knew he'd be like this.
08:46I mean, look at that.
08:48So we'll see if she shows her teeth, but Coby will know straight away she doesn't seem as worried with
08:54Moki because Coby's doing this very politely.
08:56Oh, oh my God, that scared me.
09:01Joy.
09:02God, that made me jump that.
09:03I should have seen that coming because she was so still.
09:04But I don't mind that.
09:06Showed her teeth, had a little bark, had a little growl, but obviously didn't like try to attack him or
09:11break skin or anything.
09:12She's just telling him, I'm scared, back off.
09:15Okay, so there is one more dog to actually meet.
09:19He's currently inside.
09:19We only rescued him yesterday and he's super scared.
09:22So there's no chance that I'm going to be able to get him to come out.
09:24But I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to keep this gate set up for now.
09:29Open up the conservatory in like the house so that these dogs can come out.
09:34Oh, look, she's having a sniff.
09:36That's really good.
09:37Keep Joy here so that she has time to kind of sniff.
09:42And a lot of the dogs that we have at the moment are really good with other rescues.
09:46So they probably won't pay much attention.
09:48So I feel like if I just let all of the dogs out, leave her here, eventually I could just
09:53remove the gate sort of like in a way where I don't make a big thing over it.
09:57And hopefully this will go okay.
10:00Okay, first thing to do now is to start opening everything back up.
10:05There's Brownie.
10:07As you can see, we only rescued him yesterday.
10:11Very scared, currently in Moki's crate.
10:14I'm going to start opening up the conservatory.
10:18Okay, everything is open up now.
10:20So dogs can come in and out.
10:23Oh, here comes Brownie.
10:24He's being brave.
10:25Oh, that's really good.
10:27Hope he comes out because I feel like I may need a wee.
10:29Oh, that's really good.
10:30I'm glad he's come out.
10:32All right, so we've got Brownie, Cindy, Trixie, Moki, Kobe and Joy.
10:38Brownie, I think, can smell another dog.
10:39So as you can see, I'm completely ignoring Brownie because we only got him yesterday and he's also super scared.
10:44But this is good now for Joy to be able to just see the entire pack.
10:49Realize how many dogs are here, what dogs are here and let her just get used to everything.
10:53I do also need to get their breakfast ready and I need to somehow feed six dogs.
10:57But I think this will be really good for Joy.
10:59I can keep them separated for a little bit, especially at least before breakfast.
11:03And then after breakfast, maybe we can change everything.
11:05Oh, look.
11:08Brownie's just realized there's another dog.
11:10Oh, that's really good.
11:12I'm not going to pay him any attention.
11:14I'm not even going to say anything because I think it'll scare him.
11:17Okay, Brownie's just run back inside, but he just had a wee, which is good.
11:21So I'm going to get their breakfast ready now because where Joy is, is actually perfect because I can feed
11:28her there.
11:29Okay, I've got all six bowls ready.
11:31Now it's time to figure out how to feed six dogs separately.
11:36Brownie goes, there we go.
11:38He already runs into the crate because he's scared.
11:41Sorry, Brownie, mate.
11:42I'm just going to put it here.
11:44There you go.
11:44We've then got, oh yeah, he's straight to it.
11:47That's good.
11:48We've then got Cindy.
11:50And then we have got Kobe and Mokey.
11:55Come on, back.
11:56Come on.
11:57Sit.
11:59Yes.
12:00And Kobe, sit.
12:04Yes.
12:06And then we have got Trixie.
12:10Trixie, use these.
12:15There you go, Twix.
12:16Relax.
12:17Okay, lastly, I've got obviously absolutely no idea if she is going to eat.
12:24I'm not sure she will eat because she's scared.
12:26Oh, wow.
12:27I just went straight to it.
12:28I'm really surprised.
12:30She must be absolutely starving.
12:32That's really good.
12:33Wow.
12:35Joy completely hoovered all of her food up.
12:37Well done.
12:38That's good.
12:38I wonder if she's going to be food motivated.
12:40And then I'm just going to give her a bit more time to settle and relax.
12:43All right, time to open up the fence and let her meet the entire pack.
12:47We do eventually want Joy to come into the house.
12:50You'll see later on how difficult this was.
12:52But right now, as it's early in the day, she can decompress outside for the entire day if that's what
12:58she wants.
12:58So I'm just going to leave it like this, but I'm going to stay with Joy because I don't want
13:03her to get too scared.
13:05Moki, come.
13:05Moki, come.
13:07Because that's who she's most scared of.
13:08What I don't want is obviously all the dogs to overwhelm her, but what helps is the fact that they've
13:13all met now.
13:14I honestly think she's coming to me for reassurance.
13:18It's okay.
13:20Hello, Twix.
13:22Oh, look, she hasn't even met Brownie yet.
13:23But these two are siblings and Brownie's just like her, just completely unbothered.
13:28Nobody's paying her any attention, which is kind of exactly what we want.
13:31I think having her crate there actually helps because they get to have a sniff of that.
13:35This is really, really good.
13:37Oh, there's Brownie.
13:38I wonder if she'll tell Brownie off.
13:40No, very strange.
13:41It's like she knows because Brownie's obviously also a rescue.
13:44Like I said, we rescued him yesterday and it's like she knows which ones are the rescues.
13:48She's like, oh my God, there's so many dogs here.
13:52Come on, Joy.
13:53Come on, Cindy.
13:54Right, I just don't want them to corner her or anything.
13:57All the dogs then came inside.
13:59Now, it's only 9am, so Joy has the entire day to try and pluck up the bravery to come into
14:05the house for the first time.
14:06I feel like today it is literally just ignore her because she's going to be super scared.
14:12I'm just going to ignore her and if she wants to come in, she can come in.
14:15Dogs are chilling out.
14:16That is absolutely adorable.
14:17Joy has made it to here.
14:20I don't think she's ever been in a house before.
14:22You can see she's super scared and jumpy.
14:26She needs a lot of confidence building.
14:28Okay, so she's out there, which is fine because she's going to be decompressing and realising where she is.
14:34But the reason I wanted to come out is because I honestly think she gets a bit of confidence with
14:40me being here.
14:41This could just be me completely making this up.
14:44But whenever I go out, she keeps her distance, but she does follow.
14:48Three hours later, she is still there.
14:51The same thing, I'll come out and she comes up to me as if she's going to be really happy
14:58to see me.
14:59But 100% she's getting some kind of confidence in me because look at her.
15:04She just likes to be literally a metre apart.
15:08The only thing that worries me is that she obviously trusts me somewhat to be following me around.
15:14And if she doesn't come inside tonight, then obviously I'd have to like, you know, corner her off with like
15:19a gate so that I can actually get her and bring her in.
15:21And obviously I don't want to do that because rescue dogs don't usually like men.
15:25She's decided she can somewhat trust me and I don't want to break that trust tonight because I can't get
15:29the dog inside the house.
15:30But that is a problem to think about when we get there.
15:34Hopefully she ends up coming in.
15:35So Joy, bless her, ended up spending the entire day outside.
15:39It's now 4pm so she's been here for about 6 hours and this is the first time she's laid on
15:44her side and had a rest.
15:46I left her to sleep and then it was time to feed her dinner.
15:50Hello little one, I've got you some food.
15:52Joy.
15:54I'm going to put this here because you seem to like this corner.
15:57Here you go.
16:02She's a hungry girl.
16:04Alright, sorry, I'll leave you.
16:05Apologies.
16:07I'll give you your privacy.
16:09I left Joy outside until about 8pm.
16:12In mind this whole time she had the option to come into the house but didn't.
16:16Now the time has come to attempt to get her inside and I have a plan.
16:21You could see just then she was actually a little bit curious about what I have here.
16:24So I've got some very high reward pate because I'm hoping I can try and get her into this and
16:32then I can transport her inside.
16:33It is now 8pm.
16:34She's been outside the entire day.
16:36I have got a slip lead in case I can't bring her in but obviously I prefer to do this,
16:42you know, like a positive reward sense as opposed to the slip lead.
16:45So the first thing I'm going to do is open the crate.
16:50I'm going to leave like a little Hanson and Gretel trail.
16:54We can't leave Joy outside tonight simply because we need to prioritise the welfare of her.
16:59She's only small so foxes could try and get her.
17:02It could rain.
17:03She could try and escape.
17:05Leaving her to sleep outside just isn't an option.
17:08So my problem is I think I'll be able to get her into the crate.
17:12However, I think that obviously if she goes into the crate, I then won't be able to come around and
17:18close it because she'll run out.
17:19This is a lot harder without Ella.
17:22I'm just going to let her go into the crate.
17:24I'm not going to go to close it yet just to show that she can go in and it's safe.
17:28Okay, that's really good.
17:30So right now I just want to show her that you can go into the crate and nothing bad happens.
17:36Okay, that was really good.
17:37I'm going to be a bit closer now so that eventually I'll be able to close the crate and she'll
17:43realise that nothing bad is happening.
17:45You can see by the way she's leaning just how brave she's trying to be.
17:49She's a lot more cautious now that I'm this close.
17:53I'm going to really test her now.
17:54I'm going to stand here and let's see if she's brave enough because now I'm closer to actually close it.
18:00Okay, is that too much?
18:02I've literally got an audience of dogs right now.
18:05So I was actually at this for over an hour.
18:08The problem is I can't stand too close to the crate because it scares her and any little movement I
18:13do, she's out of there.
18:15So I tried the positive reward route.
18:17It didn't work.
18:18So I'm going to have to try and put a slip lead on her.
18:32So whilst I move around like a complete idiot, I did actually have a call with Tom Davis, a professional
18:38dog trainer, in our previous video.
18:40And he gave us some advice on how to get a rescue dog inside in this exact situation.
18:45However, that call happened after this video was already filmed.
18:49So I wasn't able to try out Tom's techniques yet.
18:52But next time, I'll definitely be doing things differently.
18:55It was at this point I had to call my mum in for backup.
18:58She told me, oh, I can get Joy inside and then proceeded to say her name and offer her treats.
19:04Bless her.
19:04I love my mum and I love that she genuinely thought this would work, but it does show how hard
19:09it actually is when dealing with a dog this scared.
19:13At this point, I've been trying for nearly two hours and we couldn't stay out here forever.
19:18We were having to do the one thing we really didn't want to, but we knew we needed to get
19:22her inside.
19:23We closed off parts of the garden to make the space smaller and I tried one last time to offer
19:28her a treat so I could get the slip lead on.
19:30I knew she probably wouldn't take it, but we wanted to exhaust every option and make this as stress-free
19:35for Joy as possible.
19:37It's okay.
19:39All we want to do is put this on and bring you inside.
19:42It's okay.
19:43That's not where she's going to take it from my hand, but...
19:49I know, I'm sorry.
19:51Good girl, it's okay.
19:53I then tried to just throw the lead onto Joy.
20:01This is so hard.
20:03I think, yeah, I think we're going to have to make it even smaller.
20:05Yeah, oh yeah, nice.
20:07There, yeah, nice.
20:08Good girl, it's okay.
20:13Thing is, dogs can obviously go into fight or flight and obviously if I trap her too much, she will
20:17go into fight.
20:18We got to a point where I made the space so small, I was really hoping she'd just go into
20:23the crate herself, but she didn't.
20:25And it meant I had to do something I really, really didn't want to do.
20:30Good girl, okay, okay.
20:33Oh my, oh no.
20:35Yes, got her.
20:36It's okay.
20:39Alright, this is what we're going to do.
20:41I'm going to grab this here.
20:55Oh my god.
20:59Okay, good girl.
21:01I know, I'm sorry Joy.
21:03all right got her in a way that i absolutely hated that i absolutely hated that and that's
21:10really scared i feel so bad for her but i'm now gonna put her upstairs with me get a nice
21:16little
21:16section for her let her decompress after all of that because that was horrible for her horrible
21:20for us as well i really did not enjoy doing that but realistically what's the other option
21:24how else could we have done that so joy is finally inside i set up a little pen for her
21:30with some
21:31water and a toy and left her crate open so she could leave if she wanted to getting her inside
21:36was obviously incredibly stressful but she's safe now and that's the most important thing she did
21:42eventually fall asleep which is great make sure you hit that subscribe button so you don't miss
21:47joy's progress because in the next video i'm going to bring her downstairs and let her explore the rest
21:52of the house for the very first time thank you so much for watching if you enjoyed this video why
21:58not watch another youtube thinks this video on screen is perfect for you to watch next and i'll see you
22:04there