When you adopt a pet, you make a commitment to be with them for life, and there is never a valid excuse for deciding to let them go.
Pets are like children, and many people don’t seem to understand that there will be good and bad times as your pet grows with you. Just like humans, pets can get sick, old, and develop long term illnesses. But that doesn’t make them any less worthy of love.
So when a senior dog was dumped at a local shelter for reasons that were out of his control, we can’t even feel gracious to the owners that they took him to a shelter instead of leaving him out on the street. The reasons included the dog’s illnesses due to old age, and heart-breakingly, the disgusting humans even branded the old boy as “stupid.”
Luckily, this story has a happy ending, and we hope this can be a lesson to everyone who is considering adopting a dog. They may not be young and healthy forever, but their love will never go away.
One morning, shelter workers at Muttville Senior Dog Rescue in San Francisco, CA, came across a sad little surprise. Figgy the 18-year-old poodle had been surrendered outside their door, and the senior dog’s owners had written down a list of excuses for why the dog could not be in their care anymore.
These included the man’s wife not liking Figgy, Figgy’s arthritis – and even that he’s ‘stupid.’ After 9 months of loving and bonding with his owners, Figgy had been carelessly abandoned simply because he was getting old (which believe it or not, happens to every animal in the end!)
The note read: “Can’t keep because wife doesn’t like the dog and he had an accident in the RV. Blind but can get around but has arthritis. No teeth. Owner says, ‘he’s stupid.'”
When he arrived at the shelter, poor Figgy was small, blind, and scared.
Because of his old age and medical conditions, the sad likelihood was that Figgy would be in the shelter until the very end. But the team wasn’t about to let that happen. Even though the shelter describe themselves as cage-free, they wanted Figgy to be as comfortable as possible. They decided that they could not let him live out his final years in a cold, hard shelter. He needed somewhere filled with love, warmth, and comfort, where he could rest and eat good food and have lots of cuddles.
With this in mind, the shelter decided to call in experienced hospice mom Eileen. The amazing woman takes on dogs who are nearing the end of their lives and makes sure that they have a comfortable, happy, and loving final ending to their life.
In a video posted by the shelter, we can see that from the minute Eileen meets little Figgy to take him home with her, there is an instant bond between the pair. Figgy visibly relaxes and Eileen holds him close to her and gives him a big cuddle. The pair then drive off home – just in time for the holidays!
It’s so amazing that there are people like Eileen who offer their homes to dogs who are nearing the end of their life. We imagine that it can be a very emotional and difficult job, but it must be incredibly rewarding to give senior dogs the ending to their lives that they deserve.
Watch Figgy’s sweet adoption video below.
