A puppy named Spinach arrived at Austin Pets Alive! (APA!) with a ruptured eye. Without their intervention, he wouldn’t have survived. After the necessary surgery to remove the damaged eye, Spinach’s spirits lifted, and everyone hoped it wouldn’t be long before he found his forever family. Sadly, that wasn’t the case. He entered the shelter as a small puppy with a big smile on his face, but more than 432 days passed, and Spinach was still waiting for someone to take him home. The pup’s whole demeanor changed.
When he first came to the shelter, he was full of energy and optimism, but as the months dragged on, his hope began to fade. The staff and volunteers at APA! adored him and refused to let him give up.
“When he was in the playgroup, he was happy and joyful because he loved to play with other dogs,” explained Frankie Helfey, an APA! volunteer, in an interview with The Dodo. “But seeing him back in his kennel was heartbreaking—you could tell how sad he was.”
As time went on, Spinach started eating less, and his weight dropped. The team knew they had to do something, so they got creative. “Every week, we would switch things up to try to get him to eat,” Helfey shared. “In the last two months, I gave him 2-4 bowls of [different types of] food just to see what he would eat.”
The staff knew they needed to find a home for Spinach before it was too late, so they took to social media, hoping someone would see how special he was. Their efforts paid off—a family in Oklahoma fell in love with Spinach’s story and decided to give him the second chance he had been waiting for.
After more than a year in the shelter, Spinach’s dream finally came true. He was on his way to a new home. Spinach is now settling into his new life, basking in the love and attention he longed for. After such a long wait, his new beginning made it all worthwhile. Scroll down to see how happy Spinach is now!
A children's doctor had been evicted and had left items behind when she left. Among them was something alarming: a plastic storage bin, where a dog had been locked inside. If someone is this cruel to a small, defenseless dog, how can they continue to treat children as a doctor?
“I’m going to miss his face,” Helfey admitted. “When you volunteer at a shelter and build these bonds, you know you’ll miss them. But you never want to see them back at the shelter.” Thanks to the dedication of APA! and the compassion of his new family, Spinach finally has the life he deserves.
Toledo, United States.
