After Years Of Being Unwanted, Deaf Senior Dog Finally Finds His Perfect Family

If there’s one upside to COVID-19, it’s that growing numbers of people are seeking “pandemic pets” to help them cope with the anxiety and stress of life in lockdown. This is particularly good news for seniors, pit bulls, and disabled shelter dogs who are usually overlooked for adoption.

For instance, Albert’s Dog Lounge, a Wisconsin dog rescue founded to help senior and special needs dogs find forever homes, has seen adoption rates surge since the pandemic began. “Our adoption applications, our adoption rate has about doubled,” founder Mandy Lewis told WMTV.

One of Lewis’ proudest moments was finding a home for Goliad, a deaf senior pit bull who spent three years in foster care because nobody wanted to adopt an older dog with special needs. The old dog had been rescued in terrible shape from a life on the streets, leaving the pup to spend most of his life unloved, unwanted, and without a home of his own.

“He was found under a freeway dubbed the ‘corridor of cruelty’ in Houston. It is a very highly populated stray dog area, it is not a good area for dogs at all,” said Lewis.

Goliad’s rescuers finally reached out to Albert’s Dogs when it started to look like this sweet dog might never get adopted. “They (rescuers in Texas) reached out to us knowing what we do with senior and special need dogs and asked if we could please adopt out Goliad to our Wisconsin area,” Lewis recalled. The rescue quickly agreed to help.

Within less than a month, Albert’s Dog Lounge had found Goliad a perfect home. Not only did his new family already include a pit bull brother, this veteran shelter dog’s new mom was a special-needs teacher actively seeking a deaf dog exactly like him! “Within less than 30 days, he had an application (for adoption), a wonderful application who we were very excited about,” said Lewis. “In fact, the adopter of Goliad is a trained teacher for hearing impaired students.”

“It’s really like Christmas morning,” said Lewis said of Goliad’s long-awaited adoption day. “I would think that after years of doing this I would be able to sleep the night before, but I don’t.”

Find out more about Goliad’s sweet story in the video below: