'Sweetheart’ Dog Was Left At Shelter When Her Family Moved Without Her

They were moving. That’s what the family said when they brought their two dogs into a busy New York shelter and left them there.

The younger dog quickly got adopted by a new family, but Envy, a 4-year-old pit bull mix described as a “sweetheart,” stayed at the shelter. She waited and waited, but no one seemed interested in her.

“I often think about what dogs think when their owner walks them in — how excited they are to be going somewhere ‘fun,’” Kabrina Marchant, a foster carer for New York Bully Crew, told The Dodo. “And all of a sudden, they’re turning around and their owner is walking away. I just wonder if she thought, ‘Oh God, what did I do?’”

While Envy’s family didn’t share much about her past, it was clear she’d lived a tough life prior to being left at the shelter.

“She’s been bred a lot, and when I say ‘a lot,’ I mean every heat cycle,” Marchant said. “It was also noted in her paperwork that she lived outside her whole life. So she was basically chained to a doghouse her entire life.”

“She’s not microchipped, she’s not spayed,” Marchant added. “The owner had no idea if she had any shots or anything like that. So she just wasn’t well taken care of.”

Then Envy caught a cough, which turned into a severe upper respiratory infection — and this made things even worse for her. To try and prevent the infection from spreading to other dogs, the shelter staff put Envy on the euthanasia list.

“It was Christmastime, she was left there, and she was within about an hour of being euthanized,” Marchant said.

But thankfully, this wasn’t the end for Envy. Last week, the team at New York Bully Crew pulled her from the shelter at the eleventh hour and placed her in foster care with Marchant, who also runs Pibble’s Plantation, a ranch for special needs dogs.

Envy, who’s been renamed Hazel, seems to know that she’s gotten a second chance — and she’s overjoyed.

“She’s very sweet and very loving,” Marchant said. “She wants to please you, so getting her to ‘sit’ only took a few times before she figured it out, and I’m pretty certain she’s never heard the command before in her life.”

“She loves her belly rubbed, her back rubbed, and that’s again something that comes along with not having affection,” Marchant added. “Once they’ve had it, they really, really want it and require it.”

Now Hazel needs a new home — and one that actually lasts forever.

“She’s still got a whole life ahead of her,” Marchant said. “I think once she gets spayed and healthy, she’s going to be a dog that people are going to stop and look at ... because she’s just absolutely gorgeous.”