A homeless dog showed up at an Elk Grove park. Why her story went viral on Nextdoor
The regulars at Morse Community Park walked into a mystery on a recent March morning: A female black-and-white bull terrier pup with a heart marking on her forehead.
But she wasn’t a stray. She had her harness, a leash and her toys; a bin full of kibble and a bowl full of water; her bed and a name: Cookie.
Everything but her owner.
“It’s the first time I’ve seen so many things left behind with a pet,” said Belinda Bridgewater, herself a twice-a-week regular at the park. “I thought, ‘Maybe I’ll take a photo.’ She seemed like such a sweet dog. ... She seemed so sad just sitting there,” Bridgewater said.
Morse park is a favorite of Elk Grove dog owners and, regulars like Bridgewater say, of people looking to abandon their pets. The dog park’s frequent users say they find dogs abandoned there two or three times a year.
The mysteries of who left Cookie with strangers and what became of her remain unsolved. Posts on social media suggest one of those strangers may have hauled her home.
But another Nextdoor post revealed the reason Cookie was left behind. A photo of the pup’s bright blue kibble bin showed a note written in black marker on the lid.
“I’m homeless. I cannot provide for My Dog Anymore,” the note began.
Cookie had had her first shots but hadn’t been spayed, her owner wrote. She’s very playful, loves children and women, but could use a little more behavior training. She has a good bark and will protect her home. “Oh she fetches too!,” Cookie’s owner wrote.
“I Hate to leave my puppy. It’s not fair to her to have to (be) homeless because I am now. Please feed, love and exercise Cookie,” the pup’s owner wrote before offering a last request: “If you cannot re-home her, please send to pitbull rescue or a no-kill shelter.”
For those living unsheltered, pets can be a necessity but stressful complexity. Family networks are frayed, torn or nonexistent. Dogs become family. Pit bull breeds, especially for homeless women, are protection to face a world lived almost entirely outside.
But dogs and other pets also “are a major barrier keeping people outside. They don’t want to give up their pets,” said Bob Erlenbusch, executive director of the Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness.
Erlenbusch places pets among his “3 P’s” that often stand in the way of shelter for so many seeking it: “Pets, possessions and partners,” he said. “Those are three big barriers for people coming inside.”
Costs can create more challenges.
Loaves and Fishes in downtown Sacramento for years has provided kennel services for the area’s homeless, but animal shelters in the Sacramento area including Sacramento SPCA in south Sacramento County, charge pet owners fees to surrender animals they can no longer care for.
The SPCA surrender fee is $60 for a dog or cat; $100 for multiple animals or a litter of pups or kittens, Foster said. Elk Grove Animal Services, which has only recently resumed owner-surrenders after months of COVID-related restrictions, charges $50, officials there said. Each says it can waive fees on a case-by-case basis.
“We understand if people are in a dire situation,” SSPCA spokeswoman Dawn Foster said. “If (money) is the only barrier, we want to have that conversation. ... If someone can’t pay the fee, we’re going to make sure (the animal) is in a safe place. If it comes down to having to abandon their pet, we don’t want them to have to make that decision.”
Both the SPCA and Elk Grove Animal Services urge people to try to hold onto their pets or if they have to give them up to find family or friends who can keep them.
“Ultimately, we try to provide a way for pets to stay with their people,” Foster said. “If there are behavior, housing or other issues, we’ll do our best to keep them in the home.”
But money or health troubles, changes in housing or a lost job — all potential issues before the pandemic — have become more acute with the contagion’s continued impact on the economy.
Sacramento SPCA has responded in a variety of ways.
The SPCA opened its emergency drive-through pet food pantry a year ago this month at its 6201 Florin Perkins Road facility in response to the dawning pandemic and the hundreds of Sacramento-area people and their pets suddenly in need.
The emergency pantry passed out more than 2,600 bags of pet food to nearly 900 families in its first eight days of operation.
The organization also offers grants to help out with veterinary care through its Paws for Health program among other resources.
Elk Grove Animal Services’ new building on 9150 Union Park Drive offers senior discounts for licenses and free vaccinations every quarter.
But as painful as the decision to leave Cookie at the city park appeared to be, there was also a silver lining: the social networks connecting neighborhoods and groups during this year-long pandemic.
Bridgewater’s post of the stranded pup quickly caught fire in Elk Grove’s active Nextdoor community, drawing more than 100 comments that day.
Many came from dog owners upset that someone could leave their pet behind. But others acted quickly to try to help.
Carol Maytun of Elk Grove was one. Maytun says she has always been “an active animal person.” She has a dog and five cats now and dogs have been a part of her life for years.
She saw Bridgewater’s post shared on a Facebook group and nearly immediately offered to take Cookie if she was still available.
She went to the site PetHarbor.com, a national clearinghouse for missing and sheltered dogs and cats with information on how to adopt or find missing and abandoned pets and a listing of local and regional shelters.
The site joins a host of other social media sites, pages and groups from standbys like Nextdoor to pet finding websites PawBoost and LostMyDoggie as well as local Facebook pages such as Elk Grove Pets Lost and Found and the SPCA.
“My attitude was that we couldn’t just leave it there and not find out what happened,” Maytun said. “I looked all over.”
Maytun had no luck, but the comments on Nextdoor kept coming in. That’s no surprise, said the SPCA’s Foster.
“This community loves animals. People have stepped up” during the pandemic, Foster said. “They’re able to use these social platforms. It’s really about a community coming together to reunite these pets and find them shelter.”
This story was originally published March 19, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
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