I adopted a five-year-old female Belgian Malinois named Koda from the Lollypop Farm Humane Society in Rochester, New York in April of 2024. She weighed 72 pounds. She was a striking fawn-and-black working-line Malinois with perfect posture and terrified eyes. She had spent sixteen months at the shelter.
She arrived with a single note clipped to her intake file, written in red ink by a previous adopter who had brought her back after 36 hours:
“DOES NOT GET INTO VEHICLES. EVER. WILL GROWL / SCRATCH / FLEE. DEEPLY TRAUMATIZED. CANNOT TRANSPORT TO VET, GROOMER, OR ANY LOCATION REQUIRING A CAR.”
Every person at the shelter told me she would probably never ride in a vehicle again.
Over the next ten months, I went through five different dog trainers trying to break what every single one of them diagnosed as vehicle-related trauma.
All five failed.
Two of them were physically hurt attempting to guide her with a leash toward the open tailgate of my Honda CR-V. One was scratched badly across the forearm. Another was thrown off balance on my front walkway when Koda panicked, twisted sideways, and ran. She made it nearly three miles into the cornfields past my property line before I found her at dusk, shaking under a collapsed fence post, with nothing but a phone flashlight to guide me back.
The sixth trainer was nothing like the others.
His name was Mr. Callum Ó’Briain-Kowalski. He was 41 years old. He was a licensed animal behaviorist with a master’s degree in canine neuropsychology from Penn State. My regular vet had suggested him after the fifth trainer walked away from the job. He had one open morning per week. He charged $210 a session – roughly double what any of the previous five had asked.
He pulled into my driveway on a bright, cool Thursday morning, July 18th, 2024, for our initial evaluation.
He watched me attempt to load Koda into the car for twenty minutes.
He watched her snarl, scrape at the pavement, and finally tear across the yard and wedge herself beneath the garden shed.
He sat down on my porch railing.
He drank a bottle of water I handed him.
He said, very calmly, “Ms. Ferreira-Holt. I don’t believe your dog has car trauma. I believe your dog has separation trauma. I think every trainer before me has been solving the wrong problem. I’d like to try something unconventional. I’m not going to attempt to put her in the car. I’m going to sit in your car myself, both doors wide open, and read a newspaper for one hour. Every single day. For as long as it takes. I won’t glance at her. I won’t speak to her. I won’t scatter treats. I won’t coax her in any way. If my instinct about this is correct – she’ll show us when she’s ready. It’ll take exactly as long as it needs to.”
I said, “Callum. That sounds – honestly, that sounds like a lot of $210 sessions just to sit in my car and read.”
He said, “Ms. Ferreira-Holt. I’ll only bill you for the session where she climbs in on her own. Every visit before that one costs you nothing. I’d rather be right than be paid.”
I want to tell you what Koda did on day 19. I want to tell you what Callum discovered buried in the previous owner’s veterinary records from a clinic in Syracuse that no one before him had bothered to request. I want to tell you about Mrs. Eleanora Voss-Kimura, a 71-year-old retired Syracuse middle-school science teacher who had died in a car collision on Interstate 81 on the afternoon of February 14th, 2023. I want to tell you what was found in the cargo area of her 2013 Nissan Pathfinder when the New York State Troopers reached the wreck at 3:17 p.m. I want to tell you about the rear seat. I want to tell you about day 39 – and the exact second Koda pressed her nose against the closed window of a parked car for the first time since February 2023.
The First Thing She Chose
Callum did exactly what he said.
The next morning, he parked his gray Subaru behind my CR-V, carried a folded newspaper to my driveway, and climbed into the driver’s seat of my car. He opened the driver’s door and the rear passenger door. Then he began reading.
Koda watched from inside the house.
She had a view of the driveway through the front window, but she wouldn’t stand near it. She lay behind the sofa with her chin on her paws. When I opened the front door, she moved farther back.
Callum didn’t look at her.
That was the hardest part for me. Every other trainer had filled the space with commands. “Come on, girl.” “Let’s go.” “Easy.” One had made a kissy noise and patted his thigh until Koda began barking.
Callum turned the newspaper page.
At 8:43, Koda came onto the porch.
At 8:51, she stepped onto the first stair.
At 8:58, she stood in the grass and stared at the open rear door. Her ears were forward. Her tail was low.
Callum kept reading an article about the Mets.
At 9:07, Koda walked to the edge of the driveway. She stopped six feet from the car and sat.
No one moved.
A delivery truck passed on the road. Koda flinched hard enough that her collar tags struck her throat. She looked toward the house, then toward Callum, then back at the house.
Callum folded the sports section over one knee.
She went inside.
The session ended at nine-thirty.
He didn’t charge me.
On day two, she reached the rear tire.
On day four, she sniffed the rubber step below the tailgate and backed away so quickly she bumped into my recycling bin. She looked offended by the bin.
On day seven, she placed one paw on the running board.
Then she stood there, frozen, while Callum read.
The old fear was still in her body, but it no longer owned every inch of the yard.
I asked him what he thought she was waiting for.
“Permission,” he said.
“From whom?”
He glanced through the open door at the empty passenger seat. “That depends on what happened before she came to the shelter.”
A File Nobody Had Pulled
Callum asked me for every document Lollypop Farm had given me.
There wasn’t much. A vaccination sheet. A behavior assessment. A photocopy of the red-ink note. Koda’s shelter number. Her original name was listed as Koda, though someone had crossed it out and written Koda Belle in blue pen.
The shelter had not known the owner’s full name.
They knew only that a state trooper had brought the dog in on February 15, 2023. The intake form said: “Found loose after motor vehicle accident. No owner present at transfer.”
Callum stared at that sentence for a long time.
“Was the dog in the vehicle?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Did anyone ask?”
I called the shelter and spoke to a woman named Pam who had worked there since 2017. She remembered Koda because Koda had bitten through a metal kennel latch during her first week.
Pam searched the old records while I waited.
“Here’s something,” she said. “There was a rabies certificate from a clinic in Syracuse. The name is partly cut off.”
“Can you send it?”
“It may take a little.”
It took three days.
The certificate came from East Genesee Veterinary Hospital. The owner was listed as Eleanora Voss-Kimura. The dog’s name was Koda. Breed: Belgian Malinois. Age at last exam: four years, eight months.
Callum read the page twice.
Then he called the clinic.
They wouldn’t release the whole file to him without proof that I was Koda’s current owner, so I sent the adoption papers, my driver’s license, and a letter giving permission. A nurse named Denise called me the following afternoon.
Her voice changed when she heard Eleanora’s name.
“Mrs. Voss-Kimura was one of ours for years,” she said. “She brought Koda in for everything. Vaccines, nail trims, an infected paw, a swallowed sock. She was very careful with that dog.”
“Was Koda in the crash?”
Denise paused.
“Yes.”
My hand had been resting on the kitchen counter. I moved it.
The file arrived that night as a scanned PDF with thirty-two pages. Most of it was ordinary veterinary paperwork: weights, bloodwork, dental notes, reminders about flea medication. One page from January 2023 caught my eye.
Behavior concern: Koda refuses to remain in vehicle if owner exits. Scratches interior. Vocalizes. Has broken rear door trim.
There was another note from February 3.
Owner reports increased distress in car. Dog attempts to move from rear seat to front when vehicle stops. Recommend behavior consult.
Eleanora never made that appointment.
The final page was an emergency report dated February 14, 2023, entered by an animal control officer named James Pruitt.
I read it standing beside the refrigerator.
Dog located inside rear cargo area of 2013 Nissan Pathfinder following collision on I-81 northbound near exit 16. Dog conscious, ambulatory, restrained by damaged tether. Owner deceased at scene. Dog repeatedly attempted to reach front passenger compartment. Removal required cutting tether. Dog sustained superficial laceration to right paw and bruising to left shoulder. Refused food and water. Would not enter transport vehicle.
There was a handwritten line at the bottom.
Dog would not leave body until removed by officer.
I called Callum.
He answered on the third ring.
“I have the report,” I said.
“I know.”
“You knew?”
“I called the clinic this morning.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I wanted to see the report myself before I put words in your head.”
I sat down on the floor.
The refrigerator hummed. Outside, a lawn mower started somewhere behind the houses.
“She was in the back,” I said.
“Yes.”
“She was restrained.”
“Yes.”
“And Eleanora was in the front.”
“Yes.”
That was the part I couldn’t get past. Koda had been close enough to see her, smell her, hear her, and not close enough to reach her.
Callum said, “That’s not a dog who thinks cars are dangerous. That’s a dog who thinks cars take people away.”
What the Trooper Found
The report from New York State Police was attached to the veterinary file.
Callum printed it and brought it to my house on day eleven. The pages were gray from the scanner. One corner had been folded over and flattened again.
The collision happened at 3:12 p.m.
Eleanora had been driving home from Syracuse University, where she volunteered twice a week with a science program for middle-school students. The Pathfinder left the northbound lane after a tire failure, struck the center barrier, crossed back into traffic, and hit a concrete support near the shoulder.
She died before the ambulance arrived.
Koda was in the cargo area behind the rear seats. The Pathfinder had a metal divider between the back seats and the cargo space, and Koda wore a crash-tested harness clipped to a short tether. The tether was still attached when the troopers arrived.
The cargo area contained a blue wool blanket, two stainless-steel water bowls, a canvas medical bag, a grocery sack with three cans of dog food, and a red plastic lunchbox.
The lunchbox belonged to Eleanora.
Inside it were twelve saltine crackers, a small bottle of hand sanitizer, two pencils, and a folded sheet of paper covered in handwriting.
It wasn’t a note about the crash.
It was a list of students.
Names. Allergies. Which children needed a ride home after the Saturday program. At the bottom, Eleanora had written:
Remember: Jamie hates the smell of bananas.
That line did something ugly to me. I pictured a woman making a note for a child who wasn’t hers while her own dog waited in the back of the car.
The trooper’s report said Koda had pushed against the divider until two of the metal bars bent inward. Her right paw was cut by the broken edge. She had torn part of the cargo lining loose. Blood was found on the blanket and along the left rear door.
The rear passenger door had been jammed shut in the collision.
The rear driver’s-side door was open when the troopers reached the vehicle. Koda had not escaped through it. She had stayed inside.
“Why?” I asked.
Callum rubbed his thumb along the edge of the paper.
“Because the front was where Eleanora was.”
That night I moved Koda’s bed from the living room to my bedroom.
She didn’t use it. She slept on the floor beside the door, facing the hall.
Day Nineteen
By the nineteenth morning, Callum had spent eighteen hours sitting in my car.
He read newspapers, library books, a repair manual for a 1978 Ford pickup, and once, to my annoyance, the entire instruction booklet for my cordless leaf blower. He ate a turkey sandwich in the driver’s seat. He dropped a pickle slice between the seat and the center console and didn’t retrieve it.
Koda had progressed from the driveway to the open rear door.
She would put both front paws on the floor mat, stretch her neck inside, and retreat. She did this four times on day sixteen and seven times on day eighteen.
On day nineteen, rain had come through during the night. The yard was wet. The sky was the color of dirty dishwater.
Callum opened the rear passenger door and the driver’s door, as usual. He wiped the seat with a towel and sat down with his paper.
Koda came out at 8:12.
She walked straight to the car.
I was on the porch with a mug of coffee. I didn’t speak. I didn’t even turn my head all the way, because Callum had warned me that staring could make her feel watched.
Koda put one paw inside.
Then the other.
Her back legs stayed in the driveway.
Callum turned a page.
She backed out.
I thought that was it. I looked down at my coffee. There was a dead moth floating in it, and I remember thinking I should throw the whole mug away.
Then I heard the seat springs move.
Koda had climbed in.
She stood in the rear passenger footwell, trembling so hard her harness buckle clicked against the door. Her head was low. Her eyes stayed fixed on Callum.
He did not look at her.
She took one step forward and sat beside the driver’s seat.
For twenty-three seconds, nobody moved.
Then she put her chin on the edge of the center console.
Callum kept reading.
Koda stayed there for eleven minutes.
When she climbed out, she didn’t run. She walked to the porch and lay down under the chair where I kept my gardening gloves.
Callum closed the newspaper.
“That was the first time she entered a vehicle voluntarily since the crash,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“The report says she was carried into the animal control van after they cut the tether. Every vehicle after that was forced.”
He packed his things.
“Was that all?” I asked.
“For today.”
“You didn’t touch her.”
“No.”
“You didn’t reward her.”
“No.”
“And she got in.”
“She got in because I was still there.”
He said it plainly, without making it sound like a victory.
The next day, Koda climbed in again.
On day twenty-three, she lay down.
On day twenty-six, she allowed me to sit in the driver’s seat while she stayed in the back. My hands were wet against the steering wheel. I didn’t start the engine.
On day twenty-nine, Callum closed the driver’s door for two seconds.
Koda sprang into the front seat and pressed her whole body against the gap between the seats. Her nails struck the plastic console. She was not trying to escape. She was trying to get to him.
He opened the door.
She left.
We stopped closing doors after that.
The Detail That Changed the Plan
The fifth trainer had insisted that Koda needed a firm routine.
The fourth had used a slip lead.
The second had told me that if I let Koda “win,” she would control the house.
Callum read their notes and shook his head.
“She has been punished for trying to keep people near her,” he said.
“I never punished her.”
“I know. I’m talking about before you.”
He went back to the veterinary file.
There was a video still from Eleanora’s last appointment, taken by a technician for a gait check. Koda was lying on the clinic floor with her head pressed against Eleanora’s ankle. Eleanora’s left hand rested on the dog’s neck.
At the bottom of the image, the technician had written a note:
Owner reports dog has begun following her from room to room. Becomes distressed when separated by closed door.
Callum asked me to describe what happened when I left the house.
Koda didn’t bark. She didn’t chew anything. She stood at the front window until I returned. If I left through the garage, she went to the garage door. If I went upstairs, she waited at the bottom step.
“If you go to your car,” he said, “what does she do?”
“She watches me.”
“And if you open the door?”
“She runs.”
“Because now the car means the door between you and her is about to close.”
That afternoon, we changed the exercise.
I sat in the rear seat with Koda. Callum sat in the driveway. The car doors stayed open. We did nothing.
After ten minutes, I got out.
Koda followed.
I got back in.
She followed.
We repeated it until the motion became dull. That was the point. No leash pressure. No commands. No engine. No leaving her behind.
At one point she put her front paws on the seat and leaned her head against my shoulder. Her breath smelled like the salmon treats she had refused for ten months.
I touched the side of her neck.
She stayed.
Day Thirty-Nine
The first closed window came by accident.
It was September 9, 2024, a Monday. Callum had been delayed by a train crossing outside Fairport, so I began the session alone.
Koda was sitting in the back of my CR-V. The rear doors were open. I was in the driver’s seat, reading the same old newspaper Callum had left behind, when my neighbor’s grandson came into the driveway chasing a soccer ball.
The ball rolled under the car.
The boy ran after it.
Koda stood up fast.
I closed the rear passenger window because I thought she might jump toward him. It was a stupid, ordinary movement. My thumb pressed the button. The glass rose with a soft electric whine.
Koda turned.
She stared at the window.
For one second, I thought she would panic.
Her paws shifted on the seat. Her mouth closed. She looked at me through the gap between the seats.
I said, “You’re okay.”
The window was still open on the other side.
She walked toward the closed one.
Not away.
Toward it.
At 9:16 and 42 seconds, according to the timestamp on my phone, Koda pressed her nose against the glass.
The nose print appeared instantly.
A small wet oval.
She stayed there for three seconds, then turned and sat down.
I called Callum.
He answered breathless, still near the railroad crossing.
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
I did.
He was quiet.
“Callum?”
“Open the door.”
I opened the rear door. Koda stepped out, stretched, and went to the porch.
“No more today,” he said.
She had not accepted the car.
She had accepted a closed window.
That was different.
What Was Under the Rear Seat
The largest piece of the file arrived two days later.
Denise from East Genesee Veterinary Hospital called again. She had found an envelope in a paper chart cabinet. It had been missed in the scan because it was attached to the inside cover with an old brass fastener.
Inside was a letter from Eleanora, dated February 10, 2023.
It was addressed to the clinic, not to Koda’s next owner.
Please add this to Koda’s permanent record.
The letter said:
Koda’s distress began after my husband died in September. She was with me when the hospice aide took him away. Since then she follows me everywhere. If I leave her in the car, even for a minute, she panics. If I sit in the car with her, she settles.
I stopped reading.
Eleanora’s husband had died five months before the collision. Koda had not first learned that cars meant death on Interstate 81.
She had learned it in a house with a closed bedroom door.
The letter continued.
I am afraid she thinks people disappear when doors close. I have made arrangements with my niece, Marjorie, in case anything happens to me. Koda must not be left alone in a kennel or transported without someone beside her. She is not disobedient. She is scared of being the last one left.
There was one more page.
If I am ever unable to explain this, please believe her.
No one at the shelter had seen that letter.
Neither had the adopters who returned Koda after thirty-six hours.
Neither had the trainers who tried to drag her into my car.
I asked Callum whether Marjorie had ever come for Koda.
He said the veterinary file included a phone number. The number belonged to a disconnected landline.
A county record search found Marjorie Voss in a nursing home in Albany. She had suffered a stroke in January 2023 and could no longer care for a dog. Eleanora had been driving to visit her when the crash happened.
The person Koda was supposed to go to had been unable to take her.
The person Koda had was gone.
And every new person who approached her car kept trying to make her go alone.
The First Drive
We waited until October.
The car sat in the driveway every day. Sometimes Koda climbed in. Sometimes she ignored it. Once she carried a tennis ball into the back seat and left it there for three days. It was bright yellow, chewed flat on one side. We never found out where it came from.
Callum asked me to sit beside her for the first drive.
Not the front.
The rear seat.
He drove.
The route was less than half a mile, around the block and back. Koda wore a harness clipped to a long safety line. The windows stayed open two inches. The doors were checked twice.
I sat with one hand on the seat between us.
Callum started the engine.
Koda lifted her head.
The engine idled. The tires rolled over the driveway stones. She leaned into my knee, hard.
No scratching.
No growling.
At the stop sign, a school bus passed in front of us. Koda watched it through the window, then looked at me.
I kept my hand where it was.
We drove home.
She climbed out before me. She stood in the driveway while Callum shut off the engine.
Then she turned around and put her front paws on the rear door sill.
She looked back into the car.
Not trapped.
Checking.
The second drive went two miles. The third went to the veterinary clinic, where Denise met us outside with a bowl of water and no leash in her hand.
Koda walked through the clinic door.
She received no applause. Callum had warned me against making a huge event of it. Denise gave her a quiet scratch under the chin, and Koda leaned into her for exactly four seconds.
Then she went back to the car and climbed into the rear seat.
She waited for me.
The Seat Beside Her
Koda never became a dog who loved car rides.
She still watched the doors. She still preferred that someone sit beside her. If I left her in the parked CR-V, even for a moment, she stood up and searched the windows.
But she stopped running.
By December, she would ride with me to the trailhead. By January, she could stay in the car while I paid for gas. She hated the automatic car wash and tried to climb into my lap when the brushes slapped the windows.
I can’t blame her.
Callum’s last session was January 23, 2025. He sat in the back seat with Koda while I drove through Rochester in a light snow.
At a red light, he reached into his coat and handed me a photocopy of Eleanora’s letter.
“Keep it in the glove box,” he said.
“Why?”
“So if somebody else ever has to care for her, they won’t start from the beginning.”
Koda was lying with her head across his thigh. Her eyes were half closed.
The light changed.
I drove.
At the end of the block, Callum said, “Pull over.”
I did.
He opened his door and stepped onto the curb.
Koda lifted her head.
Callum closed the door.
She watched him walk ten feet away.
Then twenty.
Her body rose, but she didn’t bark. She didn’t claw the seat. She looked at me.
I turned the engine off.
We waited.
Callum came back and opened the door.
Koda moved over, making room beside her.
He laughed once, under his breath.
“That’s new.”
I looked at the empty space between them.
It was the same rear seat where Eleanora had kept her. The same kind of place where Koda had spent the afternoon trying to reach the front. A strip of gray upholstery. One loose thread near the buckle. Nothing special.
Koda put her head down again.
Callum shut the door.
This time, she didn’t follow him with her eyes.
If you would have opened that file, tell me. Share this with someone who has ever mistaken fear for disobedience.
For more stories about the incredible connections we share with our pets, you might enjoy reading about Biscuit Kept Dragging the Blanket to My Parents’ Bedroom or how My Old Dog Walked to the Door Whenever I Said One Woman’s Name.
