HAUTE ABOUJAGANE, N.B. – A New Brunswick woman with a troubled past has dedicated her life to rescuing and rehabilitating dogs with a so-called criminal record.
Pauline Cormier runs On the Mend Dog Rescue. She says she has dedicated her life to rehabilitating aggressive dogs.
“The troubled ones, the dangerous ones or the ones that I like to describe as criminal records dogs. The ones that have already bitten other family members or strangers,” she said.
That’s because she says it was one of her own troubled dogs that saved her life. Gripped by depression and alcoholism in the late 2000’s, Cormier was about to end her own life right after she took her dog in to be euthanized.
“At that appointment I looked into her face and I couldn’t do it.”
She says everything in that moment changed. She took one look in her dogs eyes and knew that her life did have purpose.
“I am paying it forward. It gave me a reason to live.”
Now, clean and sober for six years, Cormier’s property has dog kennels filled with potential rescues. Cormier has rehabilitated at least 500 unruly dogs, most aggressive bruisers with a sketchy past.
Her trophy dog Moses is a stocky American Bully who bit a man in the face.
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“This is one where the owner said, ‘I can’t handle him, what do I do put him down?'”
She says that’s always a last resort. Cormier took Moses in and turned him into a playful dog. She says most dogs become aggressive not because they’re bad by nature, but because they have uninformed owners.
“Usually people that have spoiled their dogs and don’t know how to provide the proper rules boundaries and limitations to set the dogs on the right path.”
Not all of Cormier’s dogs are safe to be re-homed. She keeps the hard to handle ones for herself or if they’re too aggressive she reluctantly has them put down.
But one of her dogs Dezie found her forever family with Dominique Stevens. A dog with a criminal past, Dezie has bitten at least once. But since Cormier reprogrammed her and her new owner, Dezie now lives with Stevens’ two toddlers.
“My dog now has boundaries, she is living a happy life and we are happy at home too,” said Stevens.
So is Cormier, thanks to her pack of the often misunderstood.
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