All the Blubs

[Content Note: Animal cruelty, but with a happy ending.]

This is a video of Noisette, a Boston terrier rescued from a breeding operation in Virginia, cuddling a human for the first time:


Video Description: A small black and white dog sniffs around a thin white young man who's lying on a hardwood floor, face down, his head resting on his crossed arms. He lies as still as possible while the dog approaches him. She walks to his side, then lies down beside him with her head on the small of his back, then gives a great sigh of contentment.

It's taking a little while, but Noisette is "gradually adjusting" to life outside of a filthy cage, says Anne Wuhrer, who recently took in this tiny creature, one of 132 dogs and four exotic birds removed from a Northern Virginia breeder's facilities in early July.

..."Often survivors of puppy mills are scared, a little feral in the sense that they hadn't been socialized," says Wuhrer, who helps run Dogs XL Rescue, a Baltimore-based big dogs group that helped with the bust.

Petite Noisette is an "honorary XL," Wuhrer explains -- one who until last week had "never been in a house, not housebroken. But Noisette is silly and wants to be loved. We are just working towards her trusting us and letting us touch her."

It's happening. [T]his video, taken about a week [after her rescue], shows what it's believed is Noisette's first ever snuggle with a person -- Wuhrer's husband Chris, who lay as still as he could for 20 minutes, until the pup was brave enough [to snuggle with him].

This is especially moving to me, because a lot of lying very still to convey that I could be trusted was something I had to do when we first adopted Dudley.

(I didn't know the first thing about rehabilitating a scared dog. I just did the only thing I could think of that might communicate to my dog that I was never going to hurt him.)

Good luck in your new life, Noisette. I wish you an infinitude of comforting snuggles.