For many shelter animals, there is a huge amount of competition between who gets adopted and when.
Generally speaking, the younger and healthier the animal is, the more likely it is to be adopted sooner. This is because owners are likely to be looking for a pet who will have a long lifespan, who they wouldn’t have to care for excessively.
But tragically, many animals who are brought to shelters have been through trauma and neglect, resulting in long-standing health issues and injuries that can sometimes require expensive and lengthy treatment.
Meet Emerson. At twelve weeks old, he was the puppy that no one wanted to adopt.
He had come to a rescue shelter in Maine with a sad story. He had experienced a lot of neglect and had some injuries to go along with that.
He was also deaf.
Sadly, deaf dogs are never favored for adoption in shelters. People may only be interested in a dog that they can verbally train, or perhaps they are looking for a guard dog, which Emerson probably wouldn’t be the best at!
A local TV station in Maine ran a puppy adoption section, and Emerson was one of the little pups to be featured on there.
Thanks to the show, many other dogs were adopted. But not Emerson.
But luckily for Emerson, all was not lost.
There was one person who would be perfectly suited to Emerson, and that person was Nick.
Nick, who is deaf, was scrolling through Facebook one day when he came across a story about the little pup and fell in love at first sight. His story touched Nick in a personal way, and he decided to pay a visit to the shelter to meet Emerson.
As soon as Nick met Emerson, he knew that it was meant to be. Nick said,
“He came straight to me at the door and just stopped right at my foot and stayed there. You could tell he picked me, and I knew right there that we would get along well and understand each other.”
As soon as Nick had adopted Emerson, a special bond began to form between the pair.
Emerson settled happily into Nick’s family and enjoyed spending time with Nick’s other dog, Scout.
To help Emerson learn some tricks, Nick started to use visual commands when training him. He essentially developed their very own sign language that the pair could use together.
You can see in this video uploaded onto Nick’s Instagram just how clever Emerson is at understanding visual commands. He is able to sit and lie down without Nick having to even say anything!
The pair really do have an amazing connection. Nick said,
“The bond we have is awesome. We understand each other very well.”
It really is beautiful to see the pair together. We are so glad that Emerson finally got his happy ending.
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