After four years in the shelter, Justice finds a home

At long last, Justice is home.
“His story really got to me, that he’s been in the shelter for
over four years. He’s such a good dog and he deserves a home,”
Shannon O’Leary said.
Last week—four and a half years after being surrendered to the
Healdsburg Animal Shelter—Justice the Shar Pei was adopted by
Sebastopol resident Shannon O’Leary. Justice is now 11 years old
and living in a house for the first time since he was six.
Justice’s story was told in his online biography, which O’Leary
read prior to visiting the shelter. Online biographies are part of
a new effort by Julie Seal and the Healdsburg Animal Shelter to
help dogs get adopted into permanent homes more quickly.
“We’re no longer waiting for adopters to come to us, we’re being
proactive and going to adopters,” executive director Julie Seal
said. “Now animals have very thorough online biographies. Although
the shelter had had him [Justice] for four and a half years, until
a month ago, it didn’t even say in his biography whether he was
housebroken or not. Now, we describe qualities about the dog… for
example, loves to give kisses, loves children… so they kind of jump
off the page to the adopters.”
For Shannon O’Leary, Justice certainly jumped off the page. And
when she met him in person, they had an instant connection.
“I went to the Healdsburg Animal Shelter website and I saw
Justice and they had a great little story about him, and I thought
he would be great,” O’Leary said. “I went down to the shelter that
day and he was actually out on a walk, so I waited. He warmed up to
me right away. And I knew right away that this was the dog I
wanted.”
Beth DeCoss was the volunteer walking Justice on that fateful
day, and says she saw the instant connection between human and
canine.
“He’s a little standoffish to some people, but he warmed up to
her the first time he saw her. She loved him and he was just
delighted with her,” DeCoss said.
As for precisely what that connection was, O’Leary has a hard
time finding the words to describe it.
“There’s something about him I was drawn to,” O’Leary recalled.
“He’s an old soul. He was not standoffish with me at all, he
instantly took to me and I took to him.”
As one might imagine, it’s a bit of a culture shock for an
11-year-old dog to abruptly move from a cement kennel to an actual
home. But O’Leary says that Justice is making the transition
remarkably well.
“He’s getting used to other people and he’s always been really
great with me. He seems really happy. He’s getting used to house
life—some little sounds and things, he’s still getting used to.
Like my blender,” O’Leary said.
O’Leary hopes that Justice’s adoption will inspire others to
adopt older dogs, and noted that adopting an older dog has its
benefits.
“For him, he’s already completely house trained. He knows how to
sit, and lie, and follow simple commands. He knows how to walk on
the leash and be in a car. He’s got all of that learned and I don’t
have to teach him that stuff. He’s mellow and calm and doesn’t chew
up things. He seems very grateful,” O’Leary said.
“People should not overlook the older dogs… young dogs are great
too, but people tend to overlook the older ones, and they are
diamonds in the rough I think.”
A list of Healdsburg Animal Shelter dogs can be found at
www.healdsburgshelter.org.
Lynda Hopkins can be reached at [email protected].