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Luna 1829

4 years old · Adopted

Luna, an almost 3 year old border collie/shepherd mix, was originally adopted from Forget Me Not as a puppy. Her adopters needed to return her this year due to their ongoing and worsening health issues, and my goodness, does Luna have a story to tell!

In her prior home, she had severe separation anxiety, so much so that their veterinarian had her on a high dose of clomipramine, which we continued when she came to the shelter. She was also reported to be allergic to almost all foods and treats.

When Luna arrived, we noticed that she seemed depressed and lethargic (not uncommon in dogs that lose their families), and matched her with another dog as a playmate. They did great together and Luna seemed to be coming around slowly... until the day she ditched her playmate in the dog yard and climbed over the fence to FREEDOM. Oh no.

Since the shelter is over 300 miles from her former home, we all hoped she would not try to get back there... but for THREE WEEKS she eluded all attempts to convince her to stop running and come back for her meals and medications. The whole county was involved in the Search For Luna, with daily sightings reported. She finally chose one spot to make her base of operations, and one of her favorite shelter staff members was able to go to the property and bring Luna back to the shelter.

After 3 weeks on the run, without her medication or special diet, we were apprehensive about her mental state and the effect on her reported allergies.

Silly us.

After her return, she has been like a different dog. The adventure, perhaps combined with removing the medication, gave her confidence, and she clearly found some of the food people left out for her because she was not particularly thin. The next surprise - she had no allergic reactions at all to any of the random food people had set out along her path to freedom!

So, Luna is now happily settled in at the shelter, eating the normal shelter diet, no medication, and is an absolute delight. She is still a little bit shy around strangers, but a great friend to people she knows. Her new shelter playmate is Sherman and they do just great together - no further attempts at escape. The only sign of her separation anxiety is some whining and "yipping" in her shelter kennel, but she settles quickly and is never destructive in her kennel. She is housetrained and weighs just under 50 pounds.

This girl's face lights up when she is with a person she loves, and she is quick to decide to love all who are kind to her. She will be a very devoted companion, and would ideally like a home with someone who wants a right-hand-dog to be their sidekick for all of life's adventures.

All pets arrive spayed/neutered, dewormed, microchipped and vaccinated. Adoption fee for Luna is a suggested minimum of $125 (more gratefully accepted). All pets are placed with a 30-day money-back trial period, to give pet and family enough time to discover any unknown allergies or other conflicts.

Can't come to Republic? Don't let that stop you! We have monthly transports to the Seattle area, delivering adopted pets to their new owners. If you can add a little to your donation to help us cover our volunteer driver's expenses, that would be great!