Hey y'all, I'm new, but I tried to look through the different forums to find the best place to ask this question. I didn't really find one, so I figured this might just work best.


I'm looking for some help. My fiancee and I picked up a rottweiler/shepherd puppy off the side of the highway some weeks back. She was malnourished, dehydrated, covered in fleas, ticks, and caked on mud. She was loving as could be, though, and figured if we couldn't keep her we could at least get her in a better state of health and then find her a permanent home.
Well it turns out we've gotten sorta attached to our little Bella (who is now sister to Bear, Buttercup, and Bubby). But we're a little concerned about her possible past.

We live in an area where dogs like Bella- large, strong dogs such as rottweilers, pit bulls, etc- are used for dog fights. When we took her in, this was one of our concerns- it was one of the deciding factors. She was found in an area of town notorious for this sort of activity and we wanted to give her a better life then that.

Over the past month we've had her, we had noticed little scars- on her muzzle, cheeks, paws, and undercarriage. We thought it might've been from dog fights, although we figured they may have just occurred on the street- rather then from some person instigating them.
(About the time we noticed them I became a little worried it could've been some form of mange, but I couldn't find any of the "telltale" signs- she has no dandruff, no itching or biting, no sores, and her fur is normal in most every place except these odd "scars").
Well yesterday, we finally had the chance to get her spayed (hooray!). But when she came home, we noticed she had what appeared to be numerous lines of scars on her undercarriage where they had shaved her to perform the surgery.
I'll attach a few photos we took; we're curious if we need to be careful about any past abuse becoming a possible future problem. Please let me know what you think. If she was abused, we'd really rather be aware of it now, then do something that triggers a bad memory somewhere down the road.
Thanks for taking the time to read. Any help is appreciated.

That is really cute. I would say it was abused just because of where it was (on the side of the road) and in a bad condition. But it looks young enough to get over it.

Thanks so so much, MGM!
That makes two dogs that need training now I 'spose it's time to look for a good local trainer!
(Our husky-shepherd boy needs some good training, too! If it weren't for the anti-pull harness, I would've lost both my arms jogging/walking with him long before now! lol)

Really, though, thank you very much. It's just nice to know puppies can sorta "bounce back" like that sometimes. Bella really is the sweetest little thing, we see very little aggression in her, but we wanted to make sure we covered all our bases. Gotta spoil the babies every way ya can, after all!

Thanks, again!

Winter Paws

Looks like fate intervened for this fortunate pup. If your a kind soft spoken person, do not express your temper too often(we all lose it once in a while), so will your dogs take on your personality. This pup is too imature to have taken on permanately bad habits. Since you have three dogs they will have a pecking order and once established, you may not have to intervene, but once they all know who the alpha, (boss) is YOU! they will compete for your affection, I see no problem here as long as you take on the good leadership role. I will bet this little guy that will soon be a big guy, will try to be the closest to you!

Originally Posted by Helly

Judging from the pictures, your dog is too young to have been used in fighting. It looks more like she was probably low dog in the litter, and her litter mates were pretty rough on her, or she lived with a very dominant dog that beat her up pretty regularly.

I agree with Helly, that she's too young to have been used in fighting. At this age, she could have been used as a "bait" dog, but bait dogs don't usually survive. I wonder if she got the scars from however she got away from her former owner. BTW, would be interested to know what your vet said about the scars.