Some dogs come into a shelter scared. Some come in sick.
Tillie came in with a request attached to her name. Her family wanted her put to sleep.
And then she walked through the door and surprised everybody.
A Call From the City Shelter
The call came to the Pennsylvania SPCA from Philadelphia’s open intake shelter, the SPCA said in a Facebook post.
A senior dog had just been surrendered there, and her owners had asked for euthanasia.
When staff scanned her for a microchip, it came back to the Pennsylvania SPCA.
Her name was Matilda. She had been adopted from them in 2015, nearly 11 years earlier. Her family called her Tillie.
The SPCA says it takes its animals back for life, no matter how much time has passed. So staff went to pick her up right away.
Her owners had said she was old, wasn’t eating and was falling over.
So everyone braced for the worst.
“We prepared ourselves for what was going to come through this door,” Gillian Kocher, the Pennsylvania SPCA’s director of public relations, told The Washington Post.
If it really was Tillie’s time, the staff wanted her to be warm, safe and surrounded by love at the end. Not alone.
She Didn’t Stumble. She Didn’t Fall.
Then Tillie walked into the shelter hospital.
“She didn’t stumble. She didn’t fall. She looked around, took us all in, and wagged her tail,” the SPCA wrote.
Kocher put it even more simply.
“She was very happily wagging her tail,” she told The Washington Post.
The medical team examined her. Tillie was eating normally. She was walking normally.
Apart from routine vaccines, she had no medical needs, The Washington Post reported.
“They determined that Tillie had a lot of life left in her,” Kocher said. “She deserved to live that out in a home rather than a shelter.”
There was one more surprise. Her owner had told the shelter she was 16.
But the SPCA’s own records listed her as just under 12, Kocher told The Washington Post. Tillie had been about 1 when she was first adopted.
Tillie is a Great Pyrenees mix. And based on her condition, Kocher said, she had clearly been loved and cared for.
“All we can do is look for the best future for this animal, and that’s what we try to focus on, rather than the reasons she ended up here,” Kocher said.
“She’s Clearly Not Finished Yet”
Tillie was transferred to the SPCA on Sept. 23 and spent time in quarantine, The Washington Post reported. She became available for adoption on Oct. 14.
Two days later, the SPCA told her story on Facebook.
“Matilda greets everyone who comes to see her with a happy wag. She’s sweet, and she’s clearly not finished yet,” the post said.
“She deserves to live the rest of her days, no matter how many there may be, on a soft bed in a home of her own.”
And then came the line that got people.
“Matilda has already given one family 11 years. Now we’re looking for someone who will give her the same promise…but this time forever.”
The post drew a huge response online.
But a share is not a home. Some adoption requests came in, Kocher said, but few people followed through with the required in-person visit.
“Deal”
About 30 minutes away, in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, a woman named Victoria Caldwell saw the post and got emotional right away, The Washington Post reported.
Caldwell, 55, has adopted eight rescue dogs. Her car even has a magnet that says “rescue is my favorite breed.”
Lately, she has a soft spot for seniors. Her dog Hazel is 12. Her last dog, Sammy, was 11 when she adopted him. He died at 15 in May.
“They still have a lot of love to give,” Caldwell said. “I just want to make the rest of their life the best of their life.”
She and her fiancé had been holding off on another dog because Hazel has health issues.
But Tillie changed her mind.
“If Tillie isn’t adopted by the weekend, I want to go and see her and get her out of there,” Caldwell told her fiancé, Joby Parendier.
His answer was one word. “Deal.”
On Oct. 18, the couple drove to the shelter and brought Hazel along to meet her possible new sister.
The meeting went smoothly. Tillie went home with them.
“She was a little nervous, but she’s a sweetheart,” Caldwell said. “We had no issues.”
“She’s now a part of our family.”
“She Can Hear a Cheese Wrapper”
Tillie is settling in well, Caldwell told The Washington Post.
She’s affectionate and calm. And if you stop petting her, she will nudge you to keep going.
“She definitely can work a room,” Caldwell said.
For a senior dog, she is also very sharp.
“Her eyes are very bright; her hearing is phenomenal. Boy, she can hear a cheese wrapper,” Caldwell said. “In my opinion, she’s not going anywhere. She’s a young senior.”
Caldwell knows senior dogs can surprise you. When she adopted Sammy, they were told to expect about a year. They got nearly five.
Hazel was only supposed to live about six months. It has been nearly three years.
“It’s the quality of time you’re going to have, not the quantity,” Caldwell said.
Why Senior Dogs Need a Chance
Kocher said it is much harder for senior dogs to find homes, even when their stories get a lot of attention online.
“It breaks our heart to have senior animals here, so we do try to share them as much as possible, but it could certainly take weeks, sometimes longer,” she said.
“Although we love them and care for them, a shelter is no place for them to be.”
She said it takes a special kind of person to adopt an older dog.
“You know going into this that time is limited,” Kocher said. “It takes such special individuals to do that and those warm my heart the most.”
Caldwell says older dogs give back fast.
“The amount of devotion and affection you will get — and get quickly — from a senior dog is amazing… don’t discount them because they’re old. They surprise you.”
If you’re thinking about adopting, ask your local shelter about its senior dogs. They are often the ones waiting the longest.
Tillie waited long enough. Now she has a soft bed, a big sister named Hazel, and a family that plans to fill every day she has left.
“I may not have been at the beginning of her life but I’m at the end, and I am now her forever home,” Caldwell said.
Would you adopt a senior dog? Tell us in the comments.
