Every dog’s shelter stay is different. Some get adopted as soon as they’re on the website while others wait for years. Yet, it’s unlikely that many dogs have stayed at a shelter longer than Jill, the white Pit Bull.
Jill was found as a stray puppy, and she spent the next ten years of her life waiting for someone to adopt her. She was loved at the shelter, but she always dreamed of more. Some dogs might have given up hope eventually, but Jill always believed her perfect home was out there. As it turns out, all the waiting was worth it!
Ten Long Years
When Jill was only a year old, she was heartworm positive and wandering the streets of Texas. The Clay County Animal Shelter took her in, and since they’re a no-kill shelter, they vowed to keep her until she got adopted.
But Jill’s adoption date ended up being much farther away than they thought. For ten years, Jill waited patiently. She had a few people interested in her throughout the years, but it always fell through.
“We’ve had several applications put in on Jill before, but because she is a pit, a lot of landlords wouldn’t allow them to have her. Since there was trouble finding her a family, and this is a no-kill shelter, it became her home, and the workers became her family,” said Bonnie Stone, the shelter’s manager.
In 2019, one person even brought Jill home for a few months, but they returned her. The shelter had warned them that Jill was a fence-climber, but they kept leaving her outside unsupervised. So, when they couldn’t handle her adventurous spirit, they brought her back, and her search continued.
An Adoption Worth the Wait!
In July 2022, Keelie Blassingame decided she wanted to adopt a dog. She has a soft spot for older dogs, so when she met Jill, she knew it was meant to be.
“All the other dogs were very sweet [Jill] just naturally gravitated towards me. I just knew that a lot of time, senior dogs don’t get adopted very often, so that was one of the main reasons I wanted to adopt an older dog,” said Blassingame.
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It’s a bittersweet ending for the shelter staff. Of course, they’re overjoyed that Jill got adopted, but they’ll also miss her very much. She spent ten years at that shelter, so she became like family to them.
Blassingame hopes adopting Jill will help remind people that senior dogs can be amazing companions. Jill already seems happy and comfortable around her new human. Now, she’ll get to live out the rest of her days being as spoiled as possible!
“My thing is she got adopted July 4, Independence Day. Jill got her Independence!” Stone said.
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