A friendly dog spent roughly 175 days in a North Carolina shelter — then came good news.
A family living across the state saw Duckie’s photos online and rushed over to meet him , according to Madison County Animal Services.
“They wasted no time and drove 5 1/2 hours the next day to adopt our sweet boy who is heading home to a fantastic family,” the shelter wrote April 23 on Facebook.
Duckie’s new owners made the over 300-mile journey to the mountains from the Wilmington area, near the coast. While having an adopter travel from outside the area was unique, the trek was “1,000% necessary,” River Eure, shelter coordinator, told McClatchy News in a phone interview.
“We have a pretty low population out here in Madison County ,” Eure said. “We’re not packed with people, and just about everybody already has a dog.”
Duckie is starting his next chapter after he came to the shelter as a stray in November. A good Samaritan found him running around with another dog, skinny but otherwise OK, according to the shelter and a photo of Duckie’s profile.
In the months that followed, Duckie was known as a friendly, “goofy” and “loving” hound dog. He became the shelter’s longest resident, sometimes living in foster homes to take a break from his kennel.
“We don’t do many adoptions because we’re a very small shelter,” Eure said, adding “it takes a very special person to adopt a hound” because they’re so energetic.
Then on April 20, Duckie’s luck started to take a turn for the better. The shelter posted photos of him snuggling with a child, saying “the only reason we can fathom that he is still here is because he is waiting for that very special person or family who can appreciate all of his quiet charms.”
“Our sweet Duckie is a true gentleman who knows how to behave in all situations — he’s house trained, crate trained, leash trained and love-trained,” the shelter wrote in the Facebook post. “Unlike most other hounds, he’s also quiet as a mouse (except when someone comes to the door — then he’ll give you a head’s up in the true hound manner!).”
The Coonhound Rescue Network Page shared the post, and it caught the attention of the Wilmington-area family. The family exchanged messages with the shelter, saying they had experience with hounds and couldn’t wait to meet him, according to Eure.
The couple raced to the shelter April 23, giving Duckie a second chance more than 100 days after his arrival.
“One of the best parts of seeing an animal leave with their new family is pulling their kennel card off the front of their kennel — knowing that they will be sleeping in (a) home,” the shelter wrote.
Madison County Animal Services is in Marshall, a roughly 20-mile drive northwest from the popular mountain town of Asheville.
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