October 22 is National Make A Dog’s Day, a celebration created by Subaru to recognize the importance of pet adoption. Over the past two years, the spotlight has gone to the good boys and girls who tend to be the last ones adopted – the Underdogs.
In 2021, over 36,000 pets found loving homes thanks to more than 600 Subaru retailers and partner shelters across the United States.
Subaru Drive collected stories of just a few of these special dogs and their owners. To see the joy unfold in real time this year, follow along at the #MakeADogsDay hashtag.
Tomas & Diego
After losing their 15-year-old Yorkie, Matteo, in 2021, Chicagoans Yalitza Brambila and Monica Cruz were heartbroken. So was their 10-year-old cocker spaniel, Diego. Then Brambila’s sister forwarded her a picture of a miniature poodle named Wallace, age estimated at 12 or 13.
“He was an old man,” Brambila says. “He’d been in a puppy mill his whole life. He was completely blind.” Right away, she thought, We can make this dog’s last years the best possible. Cruz was hesitant, fearful of another heartbreak so soon. But on a Saturday morning, the couple met Wallace at an adoption event at PetSmart®.
“Monica held him first,” Brambila says. “We both started crying.” They’d found their dog. After a wait while their application was reviewed, Brambila and Cruz finally heard the words: “He’s yours.”
The couple gave their new family member a new name: Tomas. They took him to an eye specialist for his severe cataracts, and now, with his moms giving him regular eyedrops to prevent the swelling from glaucoma, he can keep his eyes, which are “part of his swag,” Brambila says.
Tomas loves lying in sunny spots in the living room; playing in the grass outside; cuddling with his brother, Diego; and eating Greenies™treats chopped up into tiny pieces. “It’s such a pleasure – a dog that’s had such a difficult life is now in a place [where] he feels safe and well-fed and happy,” Brambila says.
Following a wave of adoptions during the COVID-19 pandemic, shelters are filling up again, says Lisa Lunghofer, executive director of The Grey Muzzle Organization, which provides funding and resources to animal shelters and rescue organizations to help improve the lives of at-risk senior dogs such as Tomas.
Around half of the senior dogs (those who are 7 or older) who come into shelters don’t make it out, Lunghofer says. Dogs requiring expensive or time-consuming medical care are also less likely to find homes.
It can seem intimidating to think about caring for a dog with extra needs, but people who open their hearts and homes to these pets describe a wealth of rewarding experiences along with sheer, transformative love. “To know I’m making a dog’s life better, it gives my life purpose in a way,” Brambila says.
Frida
Lisa Chong rescued her 3 1/2-year-old Thai Bangkaew dog, Frida, from the streets of Thailand during a visit to Chiang Mai with her best friend, Tara Austin, in 2018. “We saw this figure dragging herself through traffic. We knew this animal needed help,” says Chong, an obstetrician/gynecologist who lives in Huntington Beach, California. Frida was paralyzed from the knees down, had a broken back, was incontinent and was missing large portions of flesh from her paws.
Chong and Austin took Frida to a vet to receive emergency care. Frida went to an animal hospital to heal, and Chong returned to California, where she soon realized she wanted Frida there with her. “We felt connected,” she says.
But with Frida needing diaper changes every six hours along with other care, such as stroller rides and swim therapy, how would Chong do her 12- to 24-hour hospital shifts? Ultimately, Chong hired a live-in caretaker for help (a measure that worked well for her but certainly isn’t required for every senior or disabled dog) and welcomed Frida home.
“At first, it was a lot to chew on. It was a huge learning curve,” Chong says. “Before you know it, you don’t know what life was like before Frida.”
In 2021, Frida was cast on the show The Wizard of Paws in which Derrick Campana, an animal orthotist, makes prosthetic limbs for pets so they can walk again. “He nailed it!” Chong says.
Frida also starred as one of the dogs in the Subaru Make A Dog’s Day campaign last year, and she’s the face of The Frida Project, Chong and Austin’s effort to provide disabled animals with resources.
“She’s taught us to believe in miracles, believe in the impossible,” Chong says. “I really feel that when we found her it was fate; it was meant to be.”
Allie & Gizmo
Of course, taking in any dog, and in particular a dog who needs specialized care, is not something to go into lightly. “You should consider medication schedules – can you give a dog medicine every eight hours? Is there someone in the family who can help?” says Beth Naccarato, a board member of One Tail at a Time, a Chicago-based organization that rescues pets from overcrowded shelters and helps place them with families.
Adoption isn’t the only option to help a dog who is taking longer than average to find a home. Fostering gives dogs breaks from shelter life, and a positive report from a foster family may help encourage a potential adopter to take the plunge.
Naccarato and her partner, Brian Campbell, have fostered eight dogs since 2018. “I’m definitely a lifelong foster person now,” she says.
Her experience includes several “foster fails,” a rescue-organization term for dogs who end up being adopted into their foster homes. “People talk about the emotional aspect: How can you just let them go?” Naccarato says. “Sometimes it’s so difficult, you don’t.”
Most recently, she and Campbell fostered then adopted Allie, a 10-year-old black Lab who’d lived most of her life in a shelter in rural Louisiana, and Gizmo, a 14-year-old German shepherd chow mix with hypothyroidism and liver disease, who’d been brought in to be euthanized after his owner passed away.
The couple lost Gizmo in early 2022, but to Naccarato, spending even a short time with a senior pet is worth it. “He was very, very loved,” she says.
Mr. Piggums
For Woody Konopelli, a retired professor, journalist and carpenter in Albuquerque, New Mexico, his relationship with rescue dogs is “a symbiotic one,” he says. Since 2020, he’s shared his home with Mr. Piggums, who he also calls Piggy, a 12-year-old pit bull who was rescued by a local organization after being found chained up outside.
“We’re two old bachelors. We sit together. I pat him. He comes over to get treats. He has only one eye – but it’s the most soulful eye,” says Konopelli. “I desperately love Mr. Piggums. I’m his biggest fan and ardent admirer.”
When caring for a senior or abused dog, you must accept the dog as is, Konopelli says. Signs of affection may be subtle, but if you’re patient, they will emerge.
“You also have to accept that losing such a companion in the relatively foreseeable future is an inevitable part of the deal,” he says. “It cannot intrude on loving them because that’s what you’re there for: love and comfort.”
It’s a two-way street, he adds. “I have always felt that the joy that they bring is more than compensation for the pain it costs when they leave.” Naccarato agrees. “This is the best thing I’ve ever done, hands down,” she says. “These dogs have given me so much. I couldn’t possibly give back enough to them for what they’ve brought to me.”
