Yelissa’s Family
My Journey To My Forever Family
Hello, it is me, Yelissa, the dog that was dumped at the shelter by my old owners. I was scared, underweight and really dirty. This nice gentleman came to visit and spend some time with me. I was very scared so I charged and barked at other dogs when he would walk me by their kennels. He was not impressed with my behavior so I went back to my kennel. I watched him start to walk away so I got as close to the kennel door as I could and just stared at him. I thought, if only he knew how much I wanted him to take me, and it was as if he read my thoughts. He stopped and looked at me and as he looked into my eyes, I think he realized that I wasn’t aggressive, I was just scared and needed a chance to show everyone what a good dog I am. To my relief, he made the decision to take me home! I was so happy because I knew that I didn’t have a chance in the shelter.
When we got home, I was introduced to the other dogs and I learned right away that they were not bad dogs. It was kinda fun learning to play with them. I was really skinny but starting gaining weight because my foster dad fed me very well. When I was ready to meet the world, I went to some adoption event. Even though everyone thought I was pretty, no one filled out an application. So the wait for my forever home continued. In the meantime, I was having fun discovering what toys and balls were! They are so fun but I was a little selfish with them sometimes and didn’t always want to share with my foster brothers and sisters. After staying in my foster home for about a month, I went to stay at another foster home where I was the only dog and I was treated like a queen! I got to go for a lot of walks and got to meet a lot of other dogs. At first, I was not very well behaved with the dogs I met but I soon learned that they just wanted to be friends and that there was no reason to be mean to them. This foster home was a little far from adoption events so I went to stay at one that was more local which I thought was great because I would be able to go to all the adoption events and hopefully find my forever family. This new foster home was fun because there were two other dogs there that love to play all day long.
Even though I went to adoption events, I wasn’t having any luck finding my forever family. Little did I know, all I needed was to be a little more patience. One day, an application from a couple in San Diego came in for me and they wanted to meet me! They had another dog and wanted to see how I would get along with her. So a meet and greet was scheduled at a park and when the day came, I was a little nervous because I wasn’t sure what to expect and I really wanted to impress them. When we got to the park, we took a walk around so I could settle my nerves. That helped! Now it was showtime, I was ready to meet them! The couple was so gentle and nice to me and their dog seemed very nice and was very calm which made me feel good. We spent over an hour getting to know each other and I started really liking this family and hoping they could be mine. They were impressed with me and decided to do the foster to adopt program to make sure we’re all a good fit for each other. Yay, one step closer to adoption! There still needed to be a home inspection and reference checks before I could get placed. The home inspection was scheduled for the following weekend. All the references eventually checked out great so it was now down to the home check. I was going to go along for that and if it went well, I could stay there starting that day!
So that Saturday, my foster dad loaded me up in the car and we headed down to San Diego. It was a nice trip, just me and my foster dad. He told me that I had to be a good girl because this could be my forever family. We finally arrived and I was excited. The home inspection went well so the foster to adopt paperwork was filled out which meant I got to stay! The adoption paperwork was left with my new foster family so if they decided to adopt me, they could fill it out and send it in to make it official.
I was feeling really good about this home and already felt like this was my forever home and my forever family. After a week, we all went to the family’s other home in the desert and wow, they had a pool and it was so much fun to be there for a week. Can you say vacation?? We all had a good time there together. We then headed back to San Diego and my foster mom told my foster dad that she was going to fill out the adoption paperwork and send it back to GSSH so they can make the adoption final. I was so happy because I fell in love with my new family and could not imagine my life without them!