Once upon a time, a young pit bull/boxer mix was picked up wandering the streets of the city. Crestwood Animal Shelter took her in and set her up with a foster family while she waited for her forever home. On one of her first days with her foster family, she jumped the backyard fence and ran off. Her foster mom whistled for her, and she returned, earning her the name Whistle. Her high energy levels, though, were too much for her foster family, and she ended up going back to the shelter for another six months, waiting to be adopted.
In spring of last year, Patricia McFadden and her boyfriend adopted a dog named Moose from Stray Rescue. Moose was great with their little family, but when McFadden’s father became ill after Christmas, she and her sister planned a trip to see him in Florida. When her sister came down with a bug, though, the two delayed their trip. Moose died suddenly that weekend.
“One day she was fine, and the next day she was gone,” McFadden remembers. “She had a respiratory issue that was too much for her.”
The next weekend, still distraught over the loss of Moose, McFadden and her sister went to Florida. Before she left, McFadden saw a photo of Whistle on a friend’s social media page and inquired about the dog.
“I told them we were interested in meeting her, but that we had a family emergency and would check in when we got back,” McFadden says. “I left it at that, thinking the thing with my dad would be over pretty quickly, and he’d be better soon.”
Unfortunately, a few weeks later, McFadden’s father passed away. To add to her sorrow, McFadden also found out Whistle had been adopted.
But there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Crestwood Animal Shelter contacted McFadden to share that Whistle had been returned to their care. The shelter staff relayed that if McFadden was still interested in Whistle, it might be best for her and her boyfriend to get to know the pup slowly.
“I work at night, so before work I’d go take her for walks at the shelter,” McFadden says. “They brought in a trainer from the East Coast to work with [Whistle], and we slowly got to know her better.”
McFadden and her boyfriend officially adopted the dog, renamed Roxy, at the end of March. Though the shelter gave them a month trial period during which Roxy could be returned, McFadden knew the pup had found her forever family.
Roxy loves to go for walks, play with balls and gnaw on chew bones. The high-energy pup is estimated to be about 2 years old, and McFadden says she “still has a lot of puppy in her.” But thanks to the trainer and numerous shelter staff members who were “really invested in her,” Roxy is much more ready to handle day-to-day life with her people.
“She loves people and is so smart,” McFadden says. “She was kind of aloof at the shelter because so much was going on. But over the past few months, she’s really started to trust us. It’s been so nice to see how she’s grown and settled in as an awesome member of our family.”
This story was originally published at laduenews.com. Read it on LN’s website here.
Robyn Elizabeth Dexter 