Jesse hails from Morocco, where we found him short-chained to a metal pole in the blazing sunshine. He was crying relentlessly, which got our attention, and tried to eat us alive as we untangled him from the chain. But we managed to get him free and inside our rented house, where we did our best to rehydrate him and calm him down.
Morocco is a terrible place to be an animal, especially a dog. The person who had chained him to the pole with no shade and no water never truly understood that he had done anything wrong. When Jesse broke with parvo two days later and needed intensive IV therapy and constant medical supervision, the man was still trying to make us give him back.
Jesse survived parvo and recovered. And when we left Morocco after the pandemic, we did not leave him behind. He traveled with us first to the U.S., then on to Costa Rica, where he lives happily in the jungle with one other Moroccan rescue dog and the rest of our multi-national pack.
Our boy Jesse retains some of the traits bred into him in Morocco, though, including the tendency to be aggressive. He’s learned a better way to live during his years with us, but he’s definitely the one who would take a chunk from an unsuspecting backside if an intruder happened to venture inside our fence.
