Mutley “Moo-ves” On: New Family, New Life

Mutley Moo’s short life has not been an easy one.  Abandoned at the age of one, he came to the Humane Society of Harrisburg Area, timid but excited to be rescued.

From day one, Mutley Moo was a high energy dog that needed lots of exercise and enrichment to keep his mind engaged. During his time at the shelter, he also worked with our Behavior Team, a dog trainer, and spent time in a foster home.  Despite these efforts, Mutley was adopted and returned twice.

After his second returned adoption, the same foster family that had fostered Mutley Moo all those months ago reached back out.  They wanted to foster Mutley Moo again.  After several weeks, they decided to make it official and adopt Mutley Moo.

After searching for over a year, Mutley had finally found his fur-ever home.

Mutley’s new family said the following about their experience:

“Our dogs really enjoy playing with other dogs. During the pandemic we weren’t comfortable going to the dog park but wanted our dogs still socialize. We had thought about fostering for awhile and figured why not. We ended up fostering 7 dogs total through 3 different organizations.

Each dog had a different story. Some were with us for a few days and some a few months. Most had never been in a house before. Some were scared some were very outgoing and energetic.   Some our dogs loved, others they merely tolerated. It was amazing to see these dogs learn from our dogs – how to be a dog, how to play with toys, learn some basic commands, and learn to live in a home.

Fostering has been so rewarding. We wanted to keep almost every dog we fostered, but when you see the dog that you grow to love go to the person they are meant to be with it is a beautiful thing. We cried every time we said goodbye.

When we saw Mutley had been at the Humane Society and needed a break, we wanted to meet him. Our girls were a little unsure about this energetic little cow. Mutley was full of energy almost bouncing off the walls. He would spend the evenings chasing and being chased on our deck.  We were getting ready to head on vacation and wanted to find him a home so he wouldn’t have to go back to the shelter.  A home was found and he was adopted. This time he cried more for us than we did for him. We were just so happy he found a home while we were away. About a month after we got back we found out he had been returned. This was the second time he was returned. Right away we reached out to foster him again. Mutley settled in very quickly and was so much calmer than the first time around.

We had Mutley for about a month and kept talking  did we really want to put him through another adoption with strangers since he did so well in our home. We introduced Mutley to some of the family dogs and they did well together. So we finally were going to fail but in the best way. We didn’t want to see Mutley try to adjust to a new home and decided he was already home.

Fostering has been a challenging, scary, wonderful, rewarding experience that we would highly recommend. You could save a life!”