Mack, the Beagle mix

Lee and Kathie Grenci
State College, PA 

A little background on Mack…we adopted Mack on May 3, 2014. He had been re-homed several times in his 2 ½ years, abandoned, found, sold on Craig’s List, surrendered to a Beagle Rescue (Mack is a Beagle Mix), and then transferred to another shelter (a total of six months living in shelters). We found out quickly that Mack had problems...he wanted to literally fight thunderstorms, charging windows to lay down the challenge. He also charged the front door when the doorbell rang. We had threshold problems (Mack wanted to run out open doors) as well as issues while walking him on a leash. 

We began to work with Kris Hopkins, who is very knowledgeable and very patient. Kris helped us to reduce Mack’s stress during storms by teaching us to reward Mack for calm behavior. When the doorbell rings, Mack now goes to his “place,” which is one of his blankets positioned on the dining room floor near the front door (here’s a video showing Mack in action).

In short, Mack has come a long, long way, and we couldn’t have done it without Kris. Mack continues to grow in his forever home, and we can see him blossoming now that we have given him the structure and security he needed to flourish…just as Kris initially predicted. Thank you, Kris, from the bottom of our hearts.