October is Adopt a Shelter Dog month! If you’ve been thinking about rescuing a pet from a local shelter, this is a good time to do it. (Okay, there isn’t really a BAD time to save a pet from a shelter, is there?)
There are so many wonderful pets sitting in shelters for various reasons. Maybe their owners had an unexpected health issue and had to surrender them. Maybe a soldier was deployed and couldn’t find a new home for a beloved pet. Maybe an abandoned dog or cat had a litter in the wild and was picked up by animal control. Every animal sitting in a shelter has a story, and too many of them don’t get a chance to make their stories known.
I know there are a lot of Families.com members and staff who adopted or rescued their pets… and I want to take an opportunity to shine a HUGE spotlight on all of you! Tell me about your shelter pets. Tell me how you found them (or how they found you). Talk about your struggles in the early days as you got used to each other.
Times like this, I wish my dogs could speak English. I’d love to know about Lally’s life before I adopted her from the Rutland County Humane Society in Rutland, Vermont. Why was she a stray? What happened to the litter of puppies she had? Why does she have a persistent fear of ceiling fans? It’s been amazing to watch her transform from the scared little piddler that came home with me in September 2003 to the funny, smart, loving girl who shares my home today.
I also wonder why Moose’s family gave him up. He was surrendered to the shelter for being “too stubborn”. Did they not have enough time to spend with him?
And my Miko… what was his life like for the seven years before we met? He was definitely a case of the dog picking the owner — he sat at the shelter for three months and NOBODY looked at him before I came along. He gave me the eye, licked my nose, and that was it. I was sunk! But somebody must have taught him tricks and fed and loved him.
I talk about my shelter dogs a lot. I want to hear about yours now! Happy Adopt a Shelter Dog month, everybody.