Editor’s note: This post is a Care2 favorite, back by popular demand. It was originally posted on March 22, 2013. Enjoy!
This is the best canine love story you will read today – or possibly ever!
If you thought dogs don’t have feelings, get ready to change your mind.
Ben, a 4 1/2-year-old mixed breed (above left), and Jade, a 1-year-old German Shepherd mix (above right), were two strays who met on the streets of Terre Haute, Indiana, and fell in love. (Yes, dogs can fall in love.) The pair was well known and cared for in the local community, but when Jade became pregnant last summer, the Terre Haute Humane Society (THHS) brought them to their shelter.
The couple were initially kenneled together, but after Jade gave birth to six puppies, a THHS adoption counselor Kali Skinner took the mom and babies home to take care of them for eight weeks. She eventually found homes for all six puppies. Jade was timid, but a “very caring mother,” Skinner told the Tribune-Star.
The new mother and father were reunited back at the shelter until Courtney and Jason Lawler decided they wanted to adopt Ben, but not Jade. They decided that one pet was enough, partly because they have a 3-year-old son who can be quite a handful himself.
They should have checked with Ben before separating him from his mate.
The Lawlers had Ben for about three weeks in December 2012. Just after Christmas, on Friday, December 28, while Jason Lawler was taking out the trash and talking on his cell, quick-pawed Ben seized his chance, raced out the door and kept running. And he didn’t look back.
He trekked the ten miles to the shelter in the bitter cold, arriving back there the following night to look for his love.
Dogs are awesome – if only all people were as loyal!
Jacob Harrod, an adoption counselor at the shelter, says he’s never seen anything like this happen before. He recalls arriving at work and being totally shocked when he saw Ben outside the fence. “We were amazed, really, really surprised!” says Harrod. But he adds that Ben is very skittish, and obviously didn’t want to get caught.
From The Tribune-Star:
Jade was inside a fence, and Ben was out. She must have been warning him, because he would not go inside. He did, however, “kiss her through the fence,” said (Kali) Skinner, (of the Humane Society), one of several who worked feverishly to capture the street-savvy Ben.
The shelter workers renewed their efforts on Monday, New Year’s Eve, and finally used a dart gun to tranquilize and slow him down, although he put up a long, hard fight once again and it took another several hours before they captured him.
There ensued a happy reunion, with the two dogs barking and wagging their tails furiously.
When Courtney and Jason Lawler heard from THHS what Ben had done, they decided that they had to adopt Jade along with Ben. “He’d keep getting loose if we took him and not her,” Ms. Lawler told NBC2 News.
The happy couple are doing wonderfully together, according to Harrod. Since the two were adopted as a pair, the THHS has checked up on them and apparently life is good. Let’s hope Ben and Jade will never be apart again.
If this story doesn’t bring tears to your eyes, you are tougher than me.
What a beautiful tale of doggy love!
Hiranmay Karlekar