My motto for this year’s A to Z is “Animals in my life – stuffed or alive”.
My husband meets with another volunteer of the shelter every Saturday noon. Together they walk their own dogs Janet, Sam and Irmi, and Truman (picture above).
Truman is a former stray dog from Spain, a terrier mix. If you watch his tail closely, you see a part of it is missing. We don’t know what happened to him on the street, but it surely was a hard life.
Truman is a very proud Spaniard! He may be a small dog (30 cm at the shoulder), but he is very brave. One day, he bit our Sam, and Sam is 60 cm tall. Sam of course didn’t take this very well, and it was a good thing Sam was wearing a muzzle back then. It never happened again, and neither my husband or the other volunteer (both experienced dog owners) could explain why it happened.
Truman was adopted twice, but he was brought back to the shelter every time, because he didn’t adapt to his new home very well and got overwhelmed very easily. It is very sad that nobody was willing to give him more time. Pets, especially those from the shelter, often bring problems with them to their new families. Very often all it takes is time, patience and willingness to work on theses issues, and things get better as soon the pet feels secure in the new enviroment. I am not going to lie, some are very tough cases, as our Sam, but most aren’t.
I wish everybody who is willing to take in a pet from a shelter would be aware of this possible complications. I wish everybody who is willing to take in a pet from a shelter would also be willing to help the new family member through this hard time. These pets suffered enough already! I wish Truman finds a new forever home soon.
We adopted a shelter baby and she was the best baby ever. She had medical issues but we made sire we addressed them. She lived until she was almost 13. A good long life. A treasure.
I hope Truman finds a forever home soon.
Have a wonderful day. ♥
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Yes, Truman really deserves it! Thanks for adopting a pet from the shelter ♥.
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It is so kind of your husband to walk some of the shelter dogs as well as your own. I know they love it and don’t get a lot of opportunities. You are sadly so right about people being impatient with newly adopted animals. They have traumatic pasts, and have been locked in a foreign place that doesn’t feel at all like home. But given time and patience and love they usually will come around! Adopting is a commitment to caring and to return them to the shelter quickly just hurts them more.
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I wish the people who give the animals back could see them later, so sad and confused. Maybe they would try harder.
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