A friend shared a post on Facebook about a dog named Ollie who desperately needed to be rescued.

Ollie was a Komondor—and this was no ordinary pooch.

My wife, Vicki, knew the breed from her childhood and immediately felt an urge to help him. Komondors are Hungarian Sheepdogs, working dogs originally bred to protect flocks of sheep. Vicki had one as a kid, and her Hungarian father had grown up with them in Hungary. At one point, he had three of them at the same time.

I had absolutely no idea what a Komondor was, so naturally, I Googled it.

Wow.

Incredibly smart. Fascinating. And, honestly, a little intimidating. They look like giant dogs made entirely out of mops.

We started gathering more information about Ollie and how he had ended up in a shelter.

The first thing we learned was that Ollie was not available for adoption. He would be euthanized unless a rescue stepped up to take him. That was the policy of the county shelter where he was being held.

And why was he considered unadoptable?

Ollie had a bite history. His owners had surrendered him because of multiple bites, including one involving their eighteen-year-old son.

Okay.

Hearing that definitely made me nervous.

By this point, Vicki was in regular communication with both a shelter volunteer and a staff member. We learned that Ollie had been at their shelter for about two weeks—and not one single person had actually interacted with him.  The staff, volunteers, and even the trainer had all decided not to try to handle him. Their fear was speaking pretty loudly to me.

So far, everything we were learning was adding another big, fat red flag to the pile of red flags.

I was torn. I had no experience with this breed, and his bite history was obviously concerning. At the same time, I knew that we only had one side to his story.  We had no idea how this dog was treated, what kind of home he lived in, and what led him to cross that line and bite people.  We also understood that judging a dog solely by how he behaves in a shelter can be a huge mistake.

Shelters are stressful environments. No matter how much love the staff and volunteers give the animals, a shelter is still not a home. It isn’t a family. It isn’t a place where a dog can relax and feel safe.

I was working at my own county's animal shelter, and I saw this all the time. Dogs can bark, lunge, cower, or act aggressively from inside a kennel, only to go home with a family and completely transform into loving, happy dogs.

It is 100% possible.

So I trusted my wife.

I trusted her instinct that there was something about Ollie worth fighting for.  He deserved a chance.

But I also trusted my own fear, and I was very clear about it.  Before we said yes, I insisted that we go meet him.  Vicki agreed.

When we arrived at the shelter, the trainer instructed us to wait outside while she attempted to leash Ollie.  Keep in mind, no one at the shelter had attempted to do this yet.

Five minutes passed.

Then ten.

Finally, the trainer came back outside and informed us that she had been unsuccessful.

Yep.

Another red flag.

She then took us inside so we could at least view Ollie through the kennel gate.  The second Vicki and I saw him, we both instantly knew.  Without a doubt, we needed to help this dog.

Ollie was sitting quietly in the back of his kennel, leaning against the wall with his head bowed down. When he saw us, he looked up and made eye contact.

He didn’t bark.

He didn’t growl.

He didn’t lunge at the gate.

He didn’t show any signs of aggression.

He just looked sad.

I mean really sad.

He was probably the saddest thing I had ever seen.  My heart broke for him.  He looked like he belonged in one of those deeply depressing—albeit effective—SPCA commercials. You know the ones: sad dogs, slow-motion footage, and a Sarah McLachlan song playing in the background.

That sad.

Vicki and I stepped outside to talk privately.  We looked at each other.  We didn’t need to say much.  We both knew.  We were going to rescue Ollie.

Our intention was never to keep him permanently. The plan was to get him out of the shelter, work with him, figure out what made him tick, and eventually find him a safe and suitable home with someone experienced with the breed.

BTW, this wasn’t our first rescue.  We had done this many times.  We'd pick out a hard to adopt dog at the shelter, sometimes bring them home to socialize with our own pack, work with them everyday, and then market the heck out of them until we found a perfect match. We had an awesome track record! But this dog was definitely the biggest commitment—and the biggest risk—we had ever taken.

We went back inside and told the trainer we would take him. Because we weren’t an official “rescue,” we had arranged with the shelter where I worked to pull Ollie on their behalf. We would then officially adopt him from the shelter and begin the process of finding him the right home.

Simple, right?

Not exactly.

Even getting Ollie from the county shelter to our house was going to be an adventure.

Ollie needed to be neutered, and we decided that getting him into a travel kennel immediately after surgery, while he was still somewhat sedated, would probably be our best opportunity to safely secure him.

There was just one tiny problem.

His last bite incident had happened when someone was trying to force him into a kennel.  So, needless to say, we really wanted to avoid a repeat performance.  We had an extra-large kennel at home, and Vicki made arrangements to drop it off at the shelter the morning of his surgery, so they can slip him inside of it while he was still groggy.

Great plan, right?

Then, while the surgery was already underway, the shelter called.  The extra-large kennel was too small!  Damn it.  Now what?

There was a larger kennel available, but it would have to be ordered online. That wasn’t going to help us get Ollie home that day. And even if we ordered the XXL kennel, there was a pretty good chance it wouldn’t fit in our car.

At this point, I think the shelter realized that we were Ollie’s one real shot and they didn't want us to slip away.  We were the only people who had shown any interest in him despite his bite history.  So they came up with another idea.

They asked their Animal Control Officers if they would be willing to transport Ollie to our home, which was about a 90 minute drive up the hill.

I’d never experienced this kind of service before, but honestly, it made perfect sense. Animal Control had the right kind of vehicle, the equipment, and the experience to safely transport a dog like Ollie.  They agreed and we scheduled a time.

Another obstacle solved.

Sort of.

Red flags are funny.  You can see them. You can acknowledge them. You can even talk about them at length.  And yet, somehow, they don’t always change your decision.

Every hurdle, every complication, every warning surrounding Ollie seemed to do nothing but make us more determined to get him out.

Meanwhile, my head was spinning with everything that would happen after we got him home.

What would happen when he walked through our front door?  Would we even bring him into the house right away??  We are technically strangers, how would he react to us?

How would he react to our other four dogs?

Our cats?  Our chickens?

Would he feel safe?

Would he trust us?

Would we be able to help him?

And, maybe most importantly…

Had we completely lost our minds??

When Animal Control finally arrived at our house, it became very clear just how serious this situation was.  To get Ollie in and out of their vehicle, they had to use a catch pole.

And as I watched this enormous, frightened Komondor being carefully moved toward our home, I remember thinking:

OMG.  What have we done?

Now the real story was about to begin.