Perfect quiet, shy-eyed dog goes home
Quiet, well-behaved Sabina the dog didn’t know what to expect when she was packed up for an adoption event in Colorado. She’d never been picked by anyone before. In fact, she’d never even had a home. A little bit of an older dog now, Sabina had spent most of her life fending for herself as a stray before she came to Best Friends. Not a gregarious girl, she had seen a lot of dogs come and go off to new homes. But nothing like that had ever happened to her.
Persuaded to adopt a dog
Well, it just so happened that a woman named Kathleen Knupp had been brought to this adoption event by a very determined neighbor. Kathleen lost her husband last year, and now lives alone. "My girlfriend hounded me for a few months," she said. "She wanted me to go to the humane society and get a dog. I said, ‘I don’t want a dog.’" But when the Best Friends adoption event came along, right in their hometown of Grand Junction, her friend was at it again, trying to persuade her. At last, Kathleen agreed to go. "But I’m certainly not going to get a dog I’m not interested in," she said firmly.
Falling for a "detached" dog
When she met Sabina, she thought Sabina seemed "detached." It was that reticent quality that made her seem uninteresting to some people. But to Kathleen, it was a good quality. She was determined not to get a troublesome dog who would bark her ears off or bounce off the walls. She was interested in Sabina’s detached quality.
The perfect dog
She applied to adopt Sabina that day, and Sabina turned out to be exactly what she was looking for – a quiet, well-behaved dog. She never barks, she’s completely housebroken, and her worst habit is getting up on the furniture. Oh, well – so now they watch TV on the couch together. It makes her a little sad, said Kathleen, "because Dick [her late husband] would have loved this dog."
A few days after adopting Sabina, Kathleen said, "Sabrina changed my life. We have a routine now." Looks like her neighbor who convinced her to adopt a dog was right all along!
And for eight-year-old Sabina, who’s never known life except as a stray, and then at a sanctuary, the whole world has just taken a new turn.
Photo by Best Friends staff