It was the morning of the day before Thanksgiving 2018. We got a call from a social worker who had a patient that had to leave behind his dog when he entered into the hospital. The pet parent didn’t think he was going to be in the hospital long but found out that he was needing to have surgery. There was a twist to the story. Due to unforeseen circumstances, Tim and his dog Stitch were living in a van in a parking lot on the west side of Cleveland. Tim was in the hospital and Stitch was still in the van. He had a family member coming a couple of times a day to get Stitch out to potty and fed but it was getting cold. The family member couldn’t bring Stitch home with them. That’s when the social worker reached out to see if we could get Stitch out of the van and into a comfy, warm home until his pet parent got out of the hospital.
We immediately made arrangements with the family member to meet them at the van to get Stitch into the care of People with Pets Outreach Project. When we arrived his cute little face was peeping out at us and he was ready to go!!!!!! Since Stitch didn’t have a proper home that we could care for him at we quickly secured a foster home for him. Stitch was a happy go lucky pup that enjoyed the comforts of a warm home, other dogs to play with and toys. The People with Pets Outreach Project got him updated with his vaccines and neutered. Over the next couple of months Tim had some medical setbacks and ended up needing to enter a skilled nursing facility. We’d take Stitch to visit with him and we could tell he was working hard to be able to be discharged. Tim was able to secure pet friendly housing through his social worker at the skilled nursing facility. The day had arrived when we were able to reunite Stitch with Tim. Unfortunately, Tim had another medical setback and needed to enter into the hospital again. He was comforted that Stitch was still under our care but was questioning if him and Stitch could actually be reunited again. After much thought about what was best for Stitch his pet parent decided that Stitch needed to be re-homed.
We reached out to the Berea Animal Rescue for help to place Stitch into his FURever home. Stitch is an amazing and adorable pup so he found his forever home rather quickly which was not a surprise to us!!!!