2020 Highlights: Meet Victoria
The One Tail at a Time staff shared some of their favorite rescue moments of the year. Our incredible Adoption Coordinator Jennifer (what would we do without her?) remembers her favorite rescue during a tough time: Victoria. You’ll definitely want to grab a Kleenex for this one!
“For me, Victoria will always represent what my job as the Adoption Coordinator really means. She waited for over 4 years before coming to OTAT to find her forever family. When she got to us on a transport van she was scared, shutdown, and didn’t allow humans to touch her. She was terrified during her intake exam. I follow the progress of some of our dogs with a cautious eye, wondering what type of home I will find for them, and Victoria was one of those dogs. But she went to foster and really blossomed, showing her true silly self. She got used to snuggles on the couch, romping in the yard and counter surfing for treats. Victoria found a home in the suburbs that was everything and more that she needed.
The beginning of the pandemic was a wild and exciting time in rescue. We all worked so hard to keep up with the volume of dogs that were coming into our care, and the sheer number of adoption/foster applications we received each day. It was both exhilarating and exhausting. It was pretty late at night when I was gathering Victoria’s paperwork to send to her new adopter that I happened to notice her intake date of 4 years earlier. I started to imagine her life in that shelter for 4 years, all those years spent waiting, the drive up to Chicago, how scared she must have been, and I broke down and cried at my desk.
I realized then that dogs like Victoria were the reason we do what we do. Sure, there are more exciting rescue stories – tough medical cases with severe injuries to overcome, abused or neglected dogs or dogs found abandoned, but sometimes the best rescue stories are the quiet ones. For me, Victoria will always represent a time that brought into sharp focus the purpose of my job. She will also remind me of a time when we were all struggling with the challenges of the pandemic as well as our own personal struggles, but we still managed to dig deep and push on to find homes for thousands of pets.”
