With a little help from social media, a senior dog who has spent most of her life at Southold Animal Shelter has finally been adopted by a family in Pennsylvania.
“She’s been here for a very long time,” said Gillian Pultz, director of North Fork Animal Welfare League, which manages both Riverhead and Southold’s animal shelters. “We’re absolutely thrilled she’s found a home.”
Cinnie, a mixed-breed dog who is at least 10 years old, was found wandering the streets in Mattituck in August 2011. She was already four or five years old at the time – already older than the younger dogs most adopters are interested in, according to Pultz.
“It’s much more difficult to adopt out senior dogs,” she said. “People are afraid they’re quickly going to run into medical costs, or that they’ll get completely attached to a dog and not have it around as long as they’d like.”
But thanks to a non-profit organization called the Mr. Mo Project, at least one of those problems were taken care of.
The Mr. Mo Project, which is based upstate in Clifton Park, helps get senior shelter dogs adopted nationwide by providing lifetime medical coverage for all the dogs in its program. Founder Chris Hughes reached out to Pultz after seeing Cinnie’s photo on Facebook, which was shared thousands of times last weekend, and offered to sponsor her.
“They will pay for any medical care for the rest of her life,” Pultz said. “Senior dogs tend to generate more medical costs, so that prevents some people from adopting them, but the Mr. Mo Project takes away that concern.”
Not only did the organization offer to sponsor Cinnie, but it is also sponsoring two other dogs in the Southold Animal Shelter, two seniors named Betsey and Barkley. Those dogs also have local sponsors who have paid their adoption fees. “So they’re pre-paid,” Pultz said. “These are cost-free dogs once they get into your house.”
Once Mr. Mo Project shared Cinnie’s story, a family from Morristown, Pennsylvania contacted the organization to adopt her. Hughes connected them with Southold Animal Shelter, and the rest is history.
“We’ll be driving her to Pennsylvania a week from today,” Pultz said.
Out-of-state adoptions at local shelters are become more and more common as Facebook helps their stories reach thousands of people across the country. Pultz says the North Fork Animal Welfare League has at least one long-distance adoption a month, which usually involves the organization’s transport volunteer driving animals across several states to their new homes.
“Twenty years ago, it would have been unheard of to ship a dog to Pennsylvania for adoption,” she said. “But we’ve got to get these animals moved around the country to where they’re going to be adopted.”
Different regions of the country have homelessness problems with different breeds, Pultz explained. In the Northeast, shelters are inundated with pitbulls. In California, chihuahuas have much more trouble finding homes.
“We’ve had some of our older pitbulls adopted in southern states like South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia,” she said. “If someone down south wants to include an older pitbull into their household, they have to look far and wide to find one.”
Older dogs are also more likely to be euthanized at other shelters because they are less likely to be adopted, she explained. North Fork Animal Welfare League doesn’t euthanize animals because of overpopulation, but other shelters will pick and choose when conditions become overcrowded.
“I can say from experience that one of the best dogs I’ve ever had, I adopted as a senior dog,” Pultz said. “He was the love of my life.”
Senior dogs are often overlooked in favor of puppies and younger dogs, but Pultz says they have a lot more to offer than most people realize. Their personalities are already developed, so someone adopting a senior dog “knows what they’re all about,” Pultz said. Senior animals are also usually housebroken and know most basic commands. They’re usually much less destructive than a rambunctious puppy or kitten.
And they don’t require as much physical play. For an adopter who leads a more laid-back lifestyle, a senior animal will be content to lounge around more than a young puppy.
“They’re more interested in cuddles than needing to be thrown a ball for an hour and a half every day in the yard,” Pultz said.
Cinnie was particularly difficult to adopt because she spent much of her life in the animal shelter, Pultz said. She didn’t get along very well with other animals, and Pultz wasn’t sure if she’d do well with young children. “There were a lot of applications for her that we needed to reject because they didn’t seem like the right fit,” she said. “It’s important that we get it to work the first time. Return adoptions are so disappointing for everyone involved.”
The North Fork Animal Welfare League manages both Southold and Riverhead town animal shelters.
