Pet of the Week

There are some dogs who walk through our doors for the first time as complete strangers. We don't know where they came from, what their life looked like before us, or where their story will go from here. And then there are dogs like Sundara, or Sunny, as we usually call her. When Sunny came through our doors this time, we already knew that sweet face. We knew the 3-year-old Boxer/Terrier mix who loves to run around the yard, chase a ball and lean into you for a really good scratch. Because Sunny had been here before.
More than a year ago we watched Sunny leave the shelter with a family. She had been adopted, and her story with us was finished. Or at least, that was what we thought. But life has a way of changing the story sometimes, and more than a year later, Sunny found herself coming back through our doors. Not because she was a bad dog or because she had done something wrong. In fact, we were told quite the opposite. Sunny had been a wonderful dog. She had lived inside with her family and was reported to be house trained and crate trained. She was also reported to do well with dogs, cats, children of all ages and even livestock. She had been someone's dog, and then circumstances changed.
I think sometimes when we hear that an animal has been returned to a shelter, we automatically want to know why. We want there to be a reason that makes sense to us, and sometimes we even want someone to blame. But when you work in animal sheltering, you learn pretty quickly that life isn't always that simple. People lose homes. Families change. Finances change. Health changes. Jobs change. Sometimes people find themselves making decisions they never imagined they would have to make. Sometimes, despite loving an animal very much, keeping them just isn't possible anymore. And sometimes those animals come back to us.
So I don't really think of Sunny's story as an adoption that failed. I think of it as a story about second chances. Sunny doesn't know that this wasn't how her story was supposed to go. She doesn't know that more than a year ago we celebrated because we thought she'd found her forever home. We use those words "forever home" a lot in rescue but I also think sometimes we put so much weight on the word forever that we forget how unpredictable life can be. Not every story is going to be perfectly wrapped up the first time. Sometimes an animal finds home on their first try. Sometimes it takes two. Sometimes it takes three or four. What matters is that we keep giving them the chance to find it.
Coming back to the shelter doesn't erase the year Sunny spent being loved. It doesn't mean her adoption didn't matter, and it certainly doesn't mean there is anything wrong with her. It simply means her story isn't finished yet. For now, Sunny is back with people she already knows, surrounded by people who are happy to love her while she's here. But we'd really like this stay with us to be a short one. Somewhere out there is another yard with a ball waiting to be thrown, another comfortable place to curl up, and another person or family ready to discover just how much love this sweet girl has to give. Sunny got her chance once before, and now she needs another one.