From Fear to Trust: A Rescue Dog’s First Steps Toward Healing When I first brought him home, he didn’t wag his tail. He didn’t run around or explore. He didn’t even make a sound. Instead, he curled up quietly on the couch — not in comfort, but in a posture of retreat. His body hunched over, his eyes hollow and distant, as if he were trying to vanish into the fabric, to disappear from a world that had already done its best to forget him. What I saw wasn’t tiredness. It was sorrow. The deep, invisible kind that weighs down the soul — the kind carried by those who have been hurt too many times, too deeply, for too long. He doesn’t know yet that he’s safe. That the cold nights on the streets are behind him. That he’ll never again be ignored, shouted at, or pushed away. He doesn’t realize that this home is permanent, that this time, love doesn’t come with conditions. Right now, he’s still afraid to move. He walks cautiously, unsure of the ground beneath his paws. He avoids eye co...