A dog has suffered the heartbreak of seeing her beloved brother adopted while she remains left behind at the shelter.
There was a time when Betsy would run and play around the yard at Forty Corners Animal Rescue in Massillon, Ohio. That was back when Yony, her sibling and best friend, was still around.
“Betsy and Yony loved to play in front of the cat house and would play with the cats through the glass door,” Ginger, the rescue manager at Forty Corners Animal Rescue, told Newsweek.
“They loved playing with the buckets of water we would leave out for them to drink and would chase each other around the play yard all day.”
Now Betsy cuts a decidedly different figure at the shelter. “She doesn’t play in the yard anymore, instead will sit there as if she’s waiting for her brother,” Ginger said.
While it’s fantastic that Yony has found his forever home, Betsy can be forgiven for feeling a little down about it, given everything they went through together.
Betsy and Yony were part of a litter of puppies rescued out of the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, which Ginger says is “one of the worst and cruelest places on earth for a street dog.”
“They were dumped and started as a litter of eight puppies,” Ginger said. “Unfortunately, someone had poisoned one puppy and it died, three ran away and then Nancy, the owner of our rescue, saved the remaining puppies.”
Nancy had been keeping tabs on what was happening to the puppies through social media and was able to coordinate the rescue of the surviving pups including spaying, neutering and transport to the shelter in Ohio.
Betsy and Yony were the first of four to arrive and Betsy very much relied on the more confident and outgoing Yony during their first few weeks there.
“Betsy was extremely close with her brother Yony. She went where he went, she found her confidence through him,” Ginger said. In time, Betsy began to venture out on her own, perhaps knowing she had the safety net of Yony to play with if things got difficult.
Betsy has not been the same since Yony left. Her brother gave her confidence while they were together at the shelter.
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That’s what made Yony’s eventual adoption on October 5 so difficult for her. Yony’s new family would have loved to have taken on Betsy as well, but there simply was not the space or means available for them to do that.
Instead, Betsy has remained at the shelter where, Ginger is sad to report, she has deteriorated significantly. “Betsy has been depressed and has been declining,” she said. “She has lost her appetite and is becoming stand offish with some of our animal caretakers.”
Efforts have been made to try and boost Betsy’s mood but to no avail. “Betsy has been moved to another area of our rescue where she can be with or see someone at all times, but it helps briefly for her,” Ginger said.
The sad reality is that Betsy’s decline is unlikely to help her chances of being adopted. A 2014 study published in the journal Applied Animal Behavior Science highlighted how small a window of time shelter dogs have in which to impress a visitor.
According to the research, visitors interact with an average of just one dog per visit, with these interactions lasting for an average of just eight minutes. That might be enough time for some dogs to make an impression but those struggling for confidence might go unnoticed.
Ginger does believe that underneath it all, Betsy would be a great dog in the right kind of home.
“Betsy would do best in a home with another dog. With a family who will be patient with her and compassionate towards her demeanor and understanding of what she went through before arriving at the rescue,” she said. “She is great with children and other dogs. She would do best in a home with no cats.”
But until that special someone is found, Betsy’s days are likely to be spent waiting, watching and hoping against all hope that Yony returns.
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