Wildflower the pit bull comes to us with an awesome, inspiring and meaningful story. She used to be a stray on the streets of South Carolina, before she was rescued in 2015. However, her foster parents didn’t know how to work with her and how best to train her, so they gave her to Pennsylvania’s Throw Away Dogs Project. The Throw Away Dogs Project is a group that rescues and trains dogs for police departments.
However, even they were struggling with the female pit bull at first.
“In comes this energetic pit bull that was so loveable but completely off the charts with the energy. … I knew the moment that we started testing her that this was not going to work out, because she evaluated horrible,” Throw Away Dogs co-founder Carol Skaziak told Metro. ” … She was just not understanding the games of our training program.”
Fortunately, the training suddenly started working.
“Wildflower, from that day forward, excelled almost like no dog I’ve ever trained,” Throw Away Dogs head trainer Bruce Meyers told Metro in March. “Two months later, Wildflower is imprinted on all core narcotics.”
Last March the organization posted a video where Wildflower can be seen doing a Narcotic Detention Search in a garage, off leash. Not only did she do great, she also graduated as a trained Narcotic Detection Dog.
“Wildflower’s success was possible because of our amazing Head Trainer and Partner that never gave up on her and continued to believe in giving this breed a second chance,” the organization posted on Facebook. “Thank you Bruce Myers for continuing to use your training methods to accommodate the dogs needs and making it work!”
Last Wednesday, the Throw Away Dogs Project posted the first photos of “Officer” Wildflower as Oklahoma’s first rescue pit bull K-9 police dog.
“This dog was going to be euthanized,” Wetumka Police Department Chief Joe Chitwood told Metro. “All of that good was this close to being put down. But she has a lot more to give, a lot more. Hopefully, you can get some of the negativity away from the breed and show folks that it’s not that way.”
Wildflower is not only the first K9 pit bull for the Oklahoma police department, she’s also the first pit bull the Throw Away Dogs organization has trained for work.
“There is no better example of one of the world’s most misunderstood dog breeds than the pit bull,” Skaziak told the TV station. “Wildflower was a misunderstood dog with tons of energy who could not get adopted … I had to help Wildflower succeed and prove that it could be done … This will be done again. Stay tuned!”
Wildflower now her own Facebook page where you can follow her K9 career and life.
