For 2-year-old dog Coby, his only crime was to eat garbage and eventually his owners couldn’t take anymore and he found himself being dropped off at the shelter, scared and confused.
The family that he loved and trusted drove him to the Fairfield Country Shelter animal shelter in South Carolina – and dumped him there.
Staff at the animal shelter saw the state this confused hound was in and couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.
“He is scared out of his mind … almost like a feral dog would be … but not once did he growl, or try to bite,” Samira El-Hage, a shelter volunteer, wrote on Facebook.
“He wanted to hide under the raised bed or run away when we got outside. He kept trying to chew the leash and would not look at us. He just stands in that corner facing the wall,” she added, according to The Dodo.
After his photo was posted on Facebook with an appeal for a new home, the image of this scared dog touched the heartstrings of an animal lover several states away.
Leigh Maddox, founder of Compassion For Cats of Delaware, saw him and felt so sorry for abandoned Coby who just cowered in the corner.
“He tugged at my heartstrings and I instantly knew we had to pull him [from the shelter],” Leigh told The Dodo.But getting to Coby to get him to his new foster mom wasn’t easy as the shelter was 9 hours from Leigh’s home in Dover, Delaware.As she tried to come up with a solution a non-profit came to the rescue. Pilots N Paws, flies shelter dogs to foster homes and when they heard about Coby they knew he was a worthy cause.
Big-hearted staff flew Coby to his new foster mom Olivia Fritz, who knew from the moment she met Coby that it would take a lot to earn his trust.Coby wouldn’t even let Olivia and her husband get him out of the plane seat he was so terrified.
“Once he was out of the plane he went limp from fear … He was so shut down that really he did not respond to anything or anyone,” she told The Dodo.
But as a true animal lover Olivia has been patient with Coby, finds ways to work around his trash digging and even carries him outside as he’s too scared.
He’s starting to make progress, eating treats out of his foster mom’s hand and attempting walks but it’s baby steps and it will be a while before he’s ready for adoption.
