Elaine Seamans doesn’t know exactly what drew her to the old Dachshund with the cloudy eyes, who seemed to be in a permanent daze – the last thing she needed was a dog.
As founder of the At-Choo Foundation, Seamans has dedicated her life to saving them — although she never adopted one from another rescue group.
But there was something about Dumpling.
“It was just one of those things where I was being pulled to get her without any logic entering into it,” she tells iHeartDogs, recalling when she first saw a picture of the 8-pound senior. “It was just one of those things — I need to do this and I’ll figure out why later.”
At 18 years old, the dog had found herself at a Southern California shelter before another rescue group pulled her out.
“I saw her and it was just like a chemical reaction,” Seamans says.
When they met, it was obvious the feeling flowed both ways.
“She’s always kind of limp,” Seamans says. In fact, in the last week or so that Seamans has had Dumpling, she hasn’t heard the dog bark even once.
“But there are things you feel from an animal,” she adds. “I feel like she’s happy. I feel like she knows this is it.”
And then there’s that long, meaningful stare into her hero’s eyes.
As for how fate brought this pair together, well, Seamans has an idea. She wonders if maybe her old dog Quizzie may have been pulling those strings. Quizzie, also a dachshund, passed away last September at the ripe age of 16.
Quizzie had been pulled out of a dumpster at just 5 weeks old, riddled with mange and scarcely able to sprout fur.
“She was found because someone heard her barking,” Seamans says. “And that barking stayed till she passed.”
But not before knowing a lifetime of love.
Seamans wonders if maybe, from wherever she is now, Quizzie, is paying it forward — and crowning a new princess to know all the love that Seamans has to offer.
“I just constantly tell her she’s beautiful and I love her and she’s home,” Seamans says. “I feel like she gets it.”
