People love it when somebody adopts the oldest and sickest dog at a shelter

Adopting the oldest, sickest and sorest dog at an animal rescue brings great reward.
Image: Quora.com

This man – we don’t know his name as far as I can see – said on social media:

“Yesterday I adopted the oldest, sickest, and sorest shelter dog. I’ll never forget his eyes. When I went into the cage he didn’t even bother to look, he knew I wouldn’t even see him. Curling around the corner he had accepted his fate. The [shelter] volunteer said to me many times: ‘Are you sure this one? Are you sure? YES!’ This is my dog. He opened the cage and three animals fell on me. I ran towards him [the sickest dog in the shelter], suddenly he looked at me as if he saw an angel. I hugged him and told him that now he’ll be happy again. Then he sleeps on my lap. Probably the first peaceful sleep he ever had.”

Give it a life. Give it a hug. They need us.

“From a dad who saved a soul.”

The point I am making here is that this man is very happy with his adoption and obviously the dog that he selected is more than happy although sometimes animal shelter dogs are very lost individuals who have shut down. It takes quite a long time for them to “turn on” again and be normal and start enjoying life.

In the photograph we see the dog in the story and he looks very calm and relaxed but a little depressed perhaps he is on that journey of recovery to being normal again.

And this particular post on social media has been viewed 134,000 times with 15,000 up-votes, 759 comments and 99 shares. This is an incredibly popular short social media post which tells me that a lot of people like what this man did. They like his sensitivity towards the vulnerable and his desire to help the least attractive and least adoptable dog in the shelter.

Not many people do that. But everybody appreciates it. They all love it. But they don’t often or hardly ever do it themselves. Perhaps they see a better person than them doing the right thing.

But there is a massive reward in adopting that kind of dog. Arguably, the reward is much higher than when adopting a healthy, popular shelter dog. This is because you start that long journey of rehabilitation and you see the dog flower in their behaviour and become happy again.

That’s your effort. That’s your reward. And in the long term the reward goes further because a deep bond develops which is arguably stronger than any other and this brings joy to both parties.

Postscript: this is an afterthought which has just come to me. When you adopt a dog in the way, you do so with a complete disregard for the appearance of the dog. Normally the appearance of the dog is the most important factor in deciding whether to adopt a dog or not. And then comes behaviour. And thirdly health. In this instance the man reversed the list and picked the unhealthiest and saddest. The appearance of the dog came last and was irrelevant to the selection process, which is a wonderful thing.

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Post Category: Dogs > dog adoption