We all deal with loss differently.
When 2-year-old German Shepherd, Zuzu, lost her biological father, who was living with her and their adoptive family, she became depressed.
She cried and was sad all the time, and she even tried to escape her home by jumping the fence and landing in a neighbor’s yard.
Unfortunately, the neighbor wasn’t understanding at all and was in fact quite the opposite, they were very angry and called animal control which took Zuzu to the Downey Animal Care Center in California.
The staff there assumed that Zuzu was a stray and just treated her like one.
They tried to cheer her up and approach her, but she was too nervous and kept her distance.
“She is a friendly girl but I sensed sadness and confusion,” Desi Lara, a volunteer at the shelter told The Dodo. “Most dogs zoom around the yard. She treaded softly, nervous to look around.”
However, all that changed when, one day, a family arrived at the shelter to see potential dogs for adoption.
As soon as Zuzu saw them, she went crazy with excitement.
She started wagging her tail, her face brightened up, and she looked like a completely different dog. It was obvious that she knew them.
The family, too, looked like they knew Zuzu already.
They approached the fence and stuck out their hands petting her.
The staff thought they were witnessing a heartwarming moment of pet-family reunion, and that at the end of the day, the dog and its former owners would go home together.
But that was not the case.
“All of a sudden she was all excited, doing a little zoom,” Lara says. “A joyous personality came out when she saw her people.” But the family told them they were looking for another dog.”
“They didn’t want her back because she kept escaping,” Chapin, a trainer at Shelter Me, tells The Dodo.
It seems that the family couldn’t give Zuzu the time she needed to heal after her father’s passing, and couldn’t cope with her depression and bad mood, so they preferred to adopt a new dog to replace her.
However, it has not been clear whether they ended up getting another dog after that visit or not.
After the incident, a rescue organization came in to take Zuzu.
They were convinced they would soon find a loving forever home for her that wouldn’t see her as disposable.
Similar to humans, animals need time to take in the loss of a loved one-be it an animal or a human- and overcome the pain.
They may go through a phase of depression, sadness, nervousness or anxiety, but if they are given time and proper attention, they are most likely to recover and be their happy old self again!
We are shocked that a family would deny their once-family dog and let it go just like that because of a phase it’s going through.
On the other hand, we are glad Zuzu was taken care of by the staff of the shelter and rescue, and we’re sure she’s found a new family to love.
You can see the dog’s heartbreaking reaction in the video below.
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