March 2025 – Contributed by a Community Volunteer

The Rise of Rudy

Rudy was not the kind of dog that turned heads. He was sturdy but not flashy, a short-haired mutt with amber eyes and a heart that beat to the rhythm of loyalty. The kind of dog who didn’t ask for much—just a ball to chase, a couch to curl up on, and a human who meant what they said.

At the shelter, he was a quiet favorite. Volunteers spoke of him with a softness reserved for the trustworthy: “Rock solid,” they’d say, or “He’s just easy to love.” And so, when a family came and chose him—marked “adopted” with a cheerful photo—it seemed the natural end to his story.

But it wasn’t the end.

The home was not a bad one, not in the traditional sense. There was food, a yard, another dog. But Rudy was left to make sense of it on his own, without guidance, without patience. The other dog bristled at his presence, and instead of tending to the wound between them, the adopters let it fester. They blamed Rudy for the silence and the growls, for the cold spaces in the house where joy should have lived.

Three weeks later, he was back in the shelter. No triumphant return, no tearful goodbye—just a vague note: “Didn’t work out.”

But something in Rudy had changed.

He no longer trotted to the kennel gate. His tail, once a metronome of happy anticipation, drooped low. He paced less. Sniffed less. Trusted less. The shelter, once a safe but temporary port, now seemed a sentence.

And yet—he still walked.

I took him out this week, the rain lightly falling on the pure green grass. He sniffed the breeze with a hunger I hadn’t seen before. He paused to watch the feral cats stroll to their food, he didn’t give chase. Instead, he looked at me—long and quiet, as if asking a question.

Maybe he was wondering if this was it. If the good chapter had passed, if the next human would bother to try. Or maybe he was remembering what it felt like to be someone’s dog.

That was the moment I saw it: not the fall of Rudy, but the beginning of his rise.

Because rising doesn’t always come with grand gestures. Sometimes it’s a tail wag, hesitant but real. Sometimes it’s a nose nuzzling into your palm. Or the tug on the pull toy I keep on my dog walker belt. It’s the decision to trust again, one walk at a time.

Rudy’s not a cautionary tale. He’s a reminder. That adoptions don’t fail because dogs are broken—they fail because humans forget that love is a verb.

But Rudy hasn’t forgotten. He still believes.

And that, my friend, is how he’ll rise. We owe him our trust to find a new family.

If you would like to adopt or learn more about RUDY, click HERE for more info.