- 13 minutes ago
A tiny rescue dog named Francis arrives with a huge problem: painful matting, nipping when handled, and a long shelter stay that no one could quite explain. After settling in with Kobe and Moi, his foster family works through grooming fear, reactivity, and a vet plan that first gets delayed when he can’t be safely sedated.
With help from a professional dog trainer, they use eye contact, shaping, and gentle desensitisation to build trust before attempting a proper brush. Francis then goes through calming medication, vet treatment, a full shave, and dental work that removes nine teeth, finally leaving him free from the matting that had been making him uncomfortable for so long. The transformation is emotional, but recovery brings new challenges as the household manages a growing pack of dogs and Francis becomes overstimulated.
This is an emotional dog rescue storytime about fostering, behaviour training, veterinary care, and the real work behind helping a misunderstood shelter dog. It blends animal rescue documentary style with practical dog training, grooming rehabilitation, and foster care updates.
Perfect for viewers searching for dog rescue stories, foster dog transformations, shelter dog rehabilitation, dog grooming problem-solving, and animal rescue documentary content. If you enjoy rescue dog updates, training progress, and heartwarming pet transformation stories, this foster care journey offers both emotional payoff and useful insight into helping reactive dogs.
With help from a professional dog trainer, they use eye contact, shaping, and gentle desensitisation to build trust before attempting a proper brush. Francis then goes through calming medication, vet treatment, a full shave, and dental work that removes nine teeth, finally leaving him free from the matting that had been making him uncomfortable for so long. The transformation is emotional, but recovery brings new challenges as the household manages a growing pack of dogs and Francis becomes overstimulated.
This is an emotional dog rescue storytime about fostering, behaviour training, veterinary care, and the real work behind helping a misunderstood shelter dog. It blends animal rescue documentary style with practical dog training, grooming rehabilitation, and foster care updates.
Perfect for viewers searching for dog rescue stories, foster dog transformations, shelter dog rehabilitation, dog grooming problem-solving, and animal rescue documentary content. If you enjoy rescue dog updates, training progress, and heartwarming pet transformation stories, this foster care journey offers both emotional payoff and useful insight into helping reactive dogs.
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AnimalsTranscript
00:00Okay, he needed pretty urgent help. We rescued this dog and honestly, something just didn't add up.
00:07He's tiny, fluffy, adorable, the kind of dog you'd think would get adopted straight away.
00:13So why didn't he? Well, after living with him for a few weeks, we started to understand why.
00:19He became best friends with our dopamine, Moki, but things took a drastic turn.
00:26And suddenly, Francis became a lot more complicated than we first thought.
00:31But here's the thing, we knew he needed help.
00:35So we made it our mission to figure out what was really going on.
00:40And by the end of this video, I think you'll be shocked by the dog Francis becomes.
00:47So we rescued Francis a couple weeks ago.
00:50He met our dogs, Kobe and Moki, and got on really well with both of them.
00:55We did quickly start to notice some really bad matting, but we'll get into his problems a little later on
01:01in the video.
01:02The next morning, Ella came downstairs and was greeted by an adorable fluffball.
01:07Good morning.
01:10Oh, doing a little stretchy.
01:13Good morning.
01:14Good morning.
01:17Good morning.
01:18Good boy.
01:20Oh, yeah, straight for a wee.
01:22Good boy.
01:23Kobe and Moki came out, bearing in mind they only met him yesterday and are already completely fine with him.
01:29It didn't take long for Francis to already start showing his cheeky personality.
01:34It makes you wonder, why has this dog been in a shelter for two years?
01:39Guys, he's play-biting my feet.
01:41Look.
01:44He's so playful.
01:47Look at him.
01:47After Ella got all their breakfast ready, I actually noticed something pretty bad.
01:53I'm looking back at the footage of Francis last night.
01:56And I've noticed, this is the time here, midnight.
02:00Literally every sort of like 10 to 20 minutes, sometimes even like three minutes, he's moving.
02:07So we think he's probably moving because all of his matting and he finds it uncomfortable.
02:12It's kind of hard to see because he's so fluffy, but when you pet him, it's everywhere.
02:18Unfortunately, he does have a history of nipping the vet.
02:21So let's get on a phone call with them and see what we can do about this.
02:26We've got a new foster.
02:28His name is Francis.
02:31He's like really matted in several areas, but there's a problem where he's like really nippy.
02:38He hasn't actually nipped us, but I think if you try and like approach him with a brush or anything
02:41like that,
02:42we were wondering what our options were.
02:44I mean, we were thinking potentially giving him anesthesia and knocking him out and then shaving him.
02:51Yeah, I mean, we can do that.
02:53I mean, I guess the options are you can bring him to us and we can sedate him and just
02:59clip everything off.
03:01This phone call went on for about 20 minutes.
03:04Long story short, we've got Francis booked in next week to get sedated.
03:07But important to remember, we are just fosters, so we need to call Fetch Your Dog Rescue,
03:14which is the rescue that ultimately has the final say on this.
03:23Safe to say Francis is pretty excited about being comfortable in his skin again.
03:28He's so precious.
03:30We just have to help him.
03:32We're happy to pay for it and everything because I'm sure we can fundraise through the channel,
03:36but obviously just wanted to run it past you because obviously you guys own him.
03:41Well, we're more than happy for you to do it.
03:43Obviously, I would just be mindful like when, like putting him through it straight away might be a bit,
03:50just make him a bit more nervous.
03:52So this is a really good point.
03:54We've only had Francis for a day basically and it's important we don't break the trust we've already built.
04:00Jordan then explains why the rescue weren't able to do this themselves.
04:04Obviously, the difficulty for us is always fundraising.
04:07So if you think you can fundraise for it, that works.
04:10Thank you so much.
04:11Okay, that's all right.
04:12No problem.
04:12Thank you, Jordan.
04:13Have a good day.
04:13Bye-bye.
04:14Bye.
04:14All right.
04:15We got the go ahead.
04:17So Francis is going to get shaved and probably look like a naked mole rat by the end of the
04:21video.
04:22So stick around for that.
04:23A few days passed and he really started becoming best friends with one of our dogs.
04:28He keeps rubbing and she thinks he's playing.
04:31Oh.
04:32Oh my God.
04:33Oh my God.
04:34He's playing with her.
04:36He's so slow.
04:38He's so slow.
04:44Francis used to live in a home and after being surrendered, he's been in a shelter for the past two
04:50years.
04:51Although he has a history of nipping in certain situations, he's clearly got so much love to still give.
04:58But we really want to work on his nipping.
05:00So we brought in a professional dog trainer, Dilnaz, to help guide us through this.
05:05So let's start with eye contact.
05:08She starts with eye contact as it's always a good base to have.
05:11It's nice and simple.
05:12Every time Francis gives Dilnaz eye contact, he gets rewarded.
05:17Yes.
05:18So if he looks at my pouch, he doesn't get it.
05:20But I want that eye contact, which is why sometimes he looks like he's looking up, but I'm not marking
05:25him.
05:26Francis picked this up super quickly.
05:28Ella had a go and look at his little tail going.
05:31It makes my heart warm seeing him so happy.
05:34I think he's just a really misunderstood dog.
05:36We then go on to grooming.
05:38Francis has a history of nipping when trying to brush him.
05:41So we have a silicone brush and Dilnaz is going to work on something called shaping.
05:46She basically does the movement you'd usually do if you're going to brush him, doesn't actually touch him with it,
05:51and rewards his behaviour.
05:53We really need to get Francis used to grooming.
05:55There's no point in getting him shaved and then his fur matting again.
05:59Yes.
06:01So it's like literally just touching his fur.
06:05There's no pressure.
06:06Literally at the moment, what we're doing is we're saying, this equals good things.
06:11Yeah.
06:12And then the light passed.
06:14Look, my hand moves over you, but I don't hurt you.
06:17Yeah.
06:17There were setbacks where Francis would freeze.
06:19Oh, there he wasn't sure.
06:20Did you see that little still and moving away?
06:23It happened so quickly, but this means he could nip.
06:26But Dilnaz was just amazing at reading his body language.
06:29And after repeating this and slowly getting closer to actually brushing him, she eventually got to this.
06:57But Dilnaz didn't give up, and she found a way to even get to this.
07:02I'm on his back now.
07:04This may seem small, but this is huge for Francis.
07:08He's always nipped when trying to groom him.
07:10Yes, we're not actually getting any knots out because he's so matted and it would hurt.
07:14But it does mean there's a chance that once he's shaved and grows his hair back,
07:19he'll actually be able to get groomed to prevent matting again.
07:22So a huge thank you to Dilnaz.
07:24She's now given us the tools to continue working on Francis to progress him even more.
07:34As the days turned into weeks, he really started to come out of his shell,
07:38and we were working on his grooming every single day.
07:42But things were about to change for Francis, because another dog was getting added into our pack,
07:47and her name is Cookie.
07:52Enough.
07:55So what's interesting is he isn't aggressive with dogs, but where we've rescued him,
08:00and obviously another dog has come into his home, it's quite a different setting.
08:04So that might be why he's ratting like this.
08:07Yeah, he's really shrunk his teeth.
08:09She's being really good.
08:10He doesn't care.
08:11No.
08:12And also I think having Kobe and Mokey there helps.
08:15The meet and greet is not going as planned, so I had an idea.
08:19Let's take the dogs onto neutral ground and see if Francis stops his barking.
08:24All right, I'm outside with Francis,
08:27and now we're going to wait for Cookie and Ella to come around the side of the house,
08:32and we're just going to go and walk down there where there's a field,
08:36and obviously just keep our distance, keep them separated, and see how he is.
08:40Okay, here comes Cookie and Ella.
08:43He's already a lot less reactive, which is good.
08:48There we go.
08:49That was good.
08:49He had a look and ignored.
08:51So Ella's over there.
08:52I've got Francis.
08:53Francis is pulling a lot,
08:55but bearing in mind this is also the first time we've actually watched Francis.
08:59Come on, Francis, mate.
09:01Good boy.
09:02We've told that he's reactive to dogs and people,
09:04so the fact that he didn't react just then is really good.
09:07We took them to the field and gradually got them closer.
09:10We let the dogs dictate how they want to meet instead of trying to force it.
09:14All right, so we'll walk sort of like next to each other.
09:17If they want to meet, they can meet,
09:19but just be at the ready to pull the dogs away.
09:24Oh, there you go.
09:26So Cookie managed to have a little sniff.
09:28Good girl.
09:29Hello.
09:31Hello.
09:31No jumping.
09:33That's good.
09:33All right, mate.
09:34So when they come back now,
09:36obviously I don't want them to go straight into the house.
09:38I'm thinking we'd take...
09:39I think we'd just go straight back into the garden.
09:40Yeah, take them around the side together.
09:42So let's put them back into the garden and see how they get on.
09:46Okay, the lead is off Francis.
09:50He looks super happy, super chilled out.
09:53Her body language is really good.
09:55Oh, look, she's following him.
09:57Oh, that's really good.
10:00They look so much more chilled out now.
10:02Yeah.
10:03It worked.
10:03It didn't actually take Francis long to start being himself again,
10:07and that's another dog successfully added to our pack.
10:11Another few days passed.
10:13Moki and Francis are really bonding and becoming best friends at this point.
10:17Moki honestly just loves small dogs.
10:19We kept up the daily training with him
10:21and got to a point where we could actually start progressing him.
10:25Okay, to get to the next level of Francis's brushing,
10:29you can see I've gotten a whole bunch of different brushes
10:33and they've all got different spike lengths.
10:36We can use these and basically increase the length of the spikes
10:42so that it actually feels more like a brush
10:44because I feel like right now it just feels like a massage to him.
10:47It's really hard to see because I'm trying to slow down a time lapse,
10:51but Francis did show his teeth at me.
10:53So I went back to basics and started shaping with the brush again.
10:57We know there will be setbacks as we try and progress him,
11:00so it's completely to be expected.
11:02Okay, time has finally come.
11:04Let's take Francis to the vet and get him feeling good again.
11:09We've got him a travel crate to transport him
11:11as we can't pick him up because he might nip.
11:14Okay, we put the crate by the front door and he literally just walked in.
11:17We weren't able to give him breakfast
11:18because he's going to be put under anesthesia.
11:22But he seems pretty happy in there, so we're just going to close the top.
11:24Oh, sorry, Francis. Sorry, mate.
11:26Good boy.
11:28And there he is.
11:30Nice and secure.
11:30You can't really see him.
11:32You can see him a little bit.
11:33Right, we're going to put him in the car and take him to the vet.
11:36So we arrived with Francis at the vet.
11:38He seemed pretty chilled out.
11:40But just two hours later, we had to pick him up.
11:44There was a big problem.
11:46Right, we've got Francis.
11:48He started barking at a dog in the vet,
11:51so we haven't actually managed to speak to him yet.
11:54Basically, the vets weren't able to get near him
11:56to give him the anesthetic.
11:58He was trying to eat everyone
12:00and it really was a risk to Francis and the vets.
12:03He's going to be super wound up because of this,
12:06so we wanted to check in on him.
12:08And yes, basically, he was just trying to bite everyone and everything.
12:11Baba!
12:12Hello!
12:13Francis!
12:14Francis!
12:15Hello!
12:16We're not going to pet you yet, no tailwags.
12:18Hi, Baba!
12:19Oh, yeah, look.
12:19Yeah, he's wound up.
12:20Yeah, he's wound up.
12:22Okay.
12:22Okay, we're going to close the crate.
12:25So, new plan.
12:27Francis is now on a calming protocol.
12:30He's going to take medication tonight
12:31that should make him a bit sleepy and more chilled out,
12:34and we try again tomorrow.
12:35But right now, we need to make sure Francis is okay
12:38and calm him down.
12:39So, we're going to go home.
12:42We're going to let him go to the toilet and stuff
12:43because he probably needs the toilet.
12:45Then fence off an area, give him a chew
12:47so that he can just, like, decompress
12:48because he is agitated, isn't he?
12:51We have arrived home with Francis.
12:54We reintroduced him with the dogs.
12:56Surprisingly, he seemed to still be like himself,
12:58still showing his cheeky side, which is good,
13:01but we know he needs to decompress,
13:03so let's set everything up for him.
13:05I'm in our dog shed getting him a treat,
13:07and look at him.
13:08He's so excited.
13:09I found these.
13:09I'm not exactly sure what they are,
13:11but they're nice and hard.
13:12Go on, Francis, out.
13:13So that he can sink his teeth into them.
13:16He looks like he's actually rebounded really well.
13:18You can see the lovely little barrier we have got for him.
13:21We are still going to put him in his crate.
13:23All right, have a good chew on that, mate.
13:27And this will just help him decompress
13:30after what was obviously a stressful afternoon or morning for him,
13:33bless him.
13:34He's loving it.
13:35He's really getting into it.
13:37So Francis has some time to decompress,
13:39but we need to feed him his calming tablet this evening
13:42and tomorrow morning before he goes back to the vets again.
13:45It is tablet time.
13:46As you can see,
13:48I have tried to,
13:49I have attempted to hide the tablets and some cheese,
13:52and we have our patient here waiting.
13:54I did test a little bit of cheese.
13:56We're just going to do that again.
13:58Make sure he wants it.
13:59Go then.
14:00Good boy.
14:02Here we go.
14:02Here goes, here goes nothing.
14:05I'm going to try and put it in this way.
14:07I'm going to just leave it on the floor for him.
14:10Come on.
14:12Just don't bite it too much and spit the tablet out.
14:15Great, he swallowed that.
14:17Francis, yes.
14:18And then there's the other tablet.
14:20He swallowed that one whole.
14:22Francis, all done?
14:24Good boy.
14:26Well, that was easy.
14:27The next morning,
14:28Francis had his second round of tablets,
14:30so let's try this again.
14:33We've got him waiting outside so he doesn't try and bark at everyone in the vet.
14:36Hello.
14:37We are a bit worried because apparently with the medication that he got given,
14:43he should be like, you know, close to knocked out.
14:45But look at him.
14:46Good news, they did manage to sedate Francis this time and he's getting shaved.
14:51But whilst under, they also checked his teeth and he ended up getting nine teeth removed as well.
14:57The red teeth are the ones removed, so luckily no major teeth and they had a good clean.
15:01So time to go and get Francis.
15:03Is he going to be looking like a naked mole rat?
15:06He should be looking brand new.
15:09Let's see how he looks.
15:12So they managed to get...
15:14Come on then, Francis.
15:17Come on.
15:17Oh.
15:19And as you can see, he's not fully shaved.
15:23They've managed to get all of his...
15:25Oh, he's walking all...
15:27Wow.
15:28So they've managed to get all of his matting out.
15:30He smells...
15:31Well, he still stinks.
15:32But he feels a lot better.
15:34Bless him.
15:34He's knackered.
15:35Oh my god, he feels so much better.
15:37Look, underneath there's no more mats or anything.
15:39They had to remove nine of his teeth in the end.
15:42Then they obviously shaved everything, got all the matting out.
15:44It did end up coming to £800 or like $1,200, I think, something around that.
15:50So the teeth extractions were super expensive.
15:53We have obviously already paid it because we just wanted him to be out of pain.
15:58You can see the anesthesia still.
16:00Oh, bless him.
16:01He's tired.
16:01But if you guys are able to, please help us out with the cost.
16:05Because obviously that was like super expensive.
16:08We didn't think it would cost that much.
16:10So we have included a link to our GoFundMe down in the description.
16:14Or you can scan the QR code on screen to donate.
16:18And yeah, any donations are really, really appreciated.
16:22So thank you so much if you're able to help.
16:24But most importantly, this one is now out of pain.
16:29His coat feels amazing.
16:33Oh, good boy.
16:35So he had a massive matting spot here.
16:39Oh, sorry, mate.
16:40Sorry.
16:41Okay, I'm sorry.
16:42And all under his belly, he had a lot of matting.
16:44Now look.
16:46Oh my god.
16:47You can actually like rub him and he just feels like a massive fluff ball.
16:50Oh, that's adorable.
16:52It warms our hearts to know Francis isn't in any pain anymore.
16:56But you can see he's still pretty out of it.
16:59So now we need to manage his recovery with all our other dogs.
17:02So we have sectioned off sort of like an entire area for him.
17:06He can go outside if he needs the toilet as well because he probably hasn't gone to the
17:09toilet for a while.
17:11But yeah, this is just because he's probably going to be a bit grumpy.
17:13I'm sure he doesn't want dogs around him, especially Cookie.
17:17Maybe a bit overwhelming for him right now.
17:19So he's got his own little area here.
17:21He can go in his crate.
17:22They said that the surgery may make him quite hot.
17:26So he may just want to like lay on the tiles because he can't regulate the heat from his
17:29body at the moment.
17:30He looks absolutely knackered.
17:32Oh, Francis, what happened?
17:36His coat looks amazing though.
17:39So Francis' road to recovery begins.
17:41He's been given painkillers, which we feed him for the next few days.
17:45He looks completely out of it, bless him.
17:47But after only a couple days, he very quickly became his brand new self.
17:52Just absolutely amazing.
17:54But there is another problem and this is where we're at with Francis today.
17:59Good boy.
18:00So Francis' transformation has been absolutely insane.
18:05He is a completely different dog now.
18:07He looks like a completely different dog.
18:08You can see we have added another dog into the pack.
18:13But unfortunately, this has caused problems with Francis.
18:17So we think that he's getting super overstimulated with having all of these dogs.
18:22And we haven't actually been able to properly walk him because we've tried walking him.
18:27And then he comes back and he's just like super tired and is having a go.
18:30So we've had a few incidents with him.
18:33And I showed you clips of him being best friends with Moki.
18:40So we usually have one rule here where if dogs sort of like start attacking other dogs and really going
18:47for them, we can't keep them.
18:49But he has had so much interest.
18:52So we're hoping that he's going to get adopted within like the next couple of weeks.
18:58You can see he's fine now and we're kind of like managing it and getting along and obviously making sure
19:04he doesn't always have access to the dogs.
19:06So he's so close to getting adopted and we're really trying to hang on.
19:09So keep an eye on our second channel.
19:11Link will be down below in the description because we'll post an update on him.
19:16Hopefully getting adopted in the next week or two.
19:19And as you can see, he's feeling so much better.
19:23Oh, good boy.
19:25Look, no more matting.
19:27Look how clean it is.
19:29Oh, good boy.
19:30Yeah.
19:32I hope you enjoyed the video.
19:34Why not watch the video of the adorable golden retriever puppy you saw at the end there.
19:38Just tap or click this video on screen now.
19:41See you there.