After patiently waiting seven years at the Animal Resource Centre (ARC) shelter in Pennsylvania, USA, a rescue dog called Ella has been adopted. What’s more, there is a sense of fate to this story.
Ella was the shelter’s longest resident, having spent almost her entire life at the shelter, when she was brought in as a skinny 5-month-old stray pit bull puppy. Over the years Ella has been returned to the shelter at least 3 times.
Local Pennsylvanian resident Kaitlyn saw Ella’s profile and story online and emailed the shelter expressing an interest in meeting Ella. Kaitlyn’s previous dog Jo had passed away a few months earlier, and whilst she missed her former companion terribly, after seeing Ella she decided that she wanted to give Ella a home.
Tori Johnson is a staff member at the Animal Resource Center, and saw firsthand the bond between Kaitlyn and Ella:
“When Ella first saw Kaitlyn, we think she already knew, that this is MY person… Ella is a dog that has fear aggression and needs multiple visits for her to get comfortable with you — not with Kaitlyn.”
Ella walked over to Kaitlyn with no hesitation and allowed her to pet and scratch her straight away. Tori Johnson also witnessed Kaitlyn crying and that she was fixated on Ella’s neck. Kaitlyn eventually pulled up a photo of her late dog Jo on her phone who was wearing the same bandanna as Ella had on now. The bandanna had belonged to Jo.
“I donated them all here when he passed,” Kaitlyn told the shelter staff.
None of the staff at the shelter could believe that out of the 20 dogs at the shelter Ella was the one who ended up wearing Jo’s bandanna. Kaitlyn told the shelter staff, “I like to think of it as Jo’s stamp of approval, knowing it was meant to be”.
Later that day Kaitlyn and Ella went home together. Although the ARC staff would miss Ella, they were ecstatic she got a well-deserved happy ending.
“We’ll miss that tomorrow, it’ll be such a bittersweet moment realizing that as we pause to reflect on a few of our favorite times with Ella- but my goodness the amount of pure happiness we will feel every day knowing Ella finally got what she deserved: ELLA GOT ADOPTED,” they said on their Facebook page.
