The path to true love isn’t always straight!
Thanks to wonderful mutt parents, Andrew and Celestine, who adopted Humphrey, for sharing their story.
My girlfriend and I began to visit Muttville in February 2016, and in March, Drake came in. It was obvious that he had been through a lot. He was skittish, went ballistic when he saw other dogs, was difficult to handle, and HATED to cuddle or be picked up. Let’s just say we were lucky he didn’t have any teeth.
We visited him every weekend, and checked his status on muttville.org every day. We watched visitors week after week pass over the misunderstood little tyke. Two months passed, and the poor old boy still had no luck. But one weekend, we had a breakthrough. As usual, he was ignoring us, when suddenly another dog came into the room. We’ll never forget what happened next. Drake saw us playing with her, crept across the room, pushed her out of the way, and after a moment of hesitation, gingerly climbed into my lap. We stayed there for hours, just holding him and crying together.
However, because we had both recently lost our childhood dogs, we still didn’t know if we were ready. And I’m ashamed to say that we left without him. We were only able to visit sporadically the next few weekends, and as time went on, he began to lose his scrappy nature and became more and more depressed.
Eventually, he found a temporary foster home, and we heard how much happier he was in a home environment. And when his temporary foster mom had to bring him back, we offered to foster him.
A month later, a good adoption applicant contacted us. It didn’t pan out, and the relief we felt made us realize that we couldn’t let him go. I’m sure it comes as no surprise that by this point, we had fallen madly, deeply, and hopelessly in love with him. We went from being weekly visitors to foster parents to his forever home. We adopted him at the Clear the Shelters event, and Drake became Humphrey, aka Humphreydoodle aka Humps aka Scuttlebutt. It was one of the happiest days of my life. Nine months after we first took him home, he is now a completely different dog. He runs to greet us when we enter the room, wags his tail furiously, and jumps up on us. He waits for me when I take a shower, sitting patiently outside the door until I’m done. And the biggest change of all – he loves being picked up and cuddled by his mama! Even though he’s over 14, he acts like a puppy now that he's come out of his shell.
He loves to run in the park, chase balls, and pounce on his toys. Senior dogs have so much love to give and to be given in return. He is the best part of my morning when I wake up, and what I look forward to the most coming home everyday. He is my best friend. My only regret is that we didn’t take him home sooner.
6/14/17
Are you the proud parent of a Muttville dog? Send us your story! Include three of your favorite photos and send it to success_stories@muttville.org with the subject line 'Success Story'.
