Tears for Senior Blind Shelter Dog With ‘So Much Love Left To Give’ Still

A Texas animal shelter is appealing for help in rehoming an almost entire blind senior dog who was abandoned and left to fend for himself.

Odie the 9-year-old border collie was picked up by animal control officer Leah Liles, who brought him to the Bayou Animal Services and Adoption Center in Dickinson.

“He was found as a stray in a citizen’s yard,” Nina Baker, the shelter manager, told Newsweek. “We have recently been getting a lot of senior dogs that are abandoned by their families.”

Odie did have a microchip. However, Baker said that when staff looked into the data on the chip they quickly realized Odie had spent much of his life being “tossed around from home to home.”

“He has been rehomed several times,” she said. “The last family that we tracked down didn’t remember who they rehomed him to, so the trail ended there.”

Unable to locate the owners that were likely behind his abandonment, Baker and the other staff at the shelter instead focused their efforts on trying to help Odie adjust to life in the often-busy facility. That was no easy task.

“He was pretty scared coming into the shelter,” Baker said. “When we touched him he would stiffen up and his skin would crawl. We assume that was also from the flea dermatitis he was experiencing. He seemed very depressed.”

Increasingly concerned for Odie’s welfare, Baker took extra steps to try and make him feel comfortable. “We decided to put him in my office instead of in the main kennel because he seemed so frail and scared,” she said.

Thankfully, Odie did not have to stay in the shelter for too long. “After determining that he was dog friendly we were able to get him into a foster home where we discovered he is mostly blind,” Baker said.

Little wonder then that the sounds of the busy shelter had unnerved Odie. He has since settled in well with his foster carer and his true self has started to emerge.

“His foster mom says that he does great in the house. He does not potty in the house and loves her other dogs and kids,” Baker said. “Odie is very affectionate. He loves being around other dogs. He does sleep a lot and chooses a dog bed over a couch.”

However, Baker knows that a foster stay won’t solve the problem in the long term. The sad reality, though, is that there is less demand for senior dogs.

A 2015 study conducted by the website Priceonomics, using data from the adoption website Petfinder, found just 68.2 percent of senior dogs listed on the site ended up finding a home. By comparison, 95 percent of puppies listed were adopted.

Odie has plenty of people fighting his corner though, including Liles, who put together a video for the shelter’s TikTok channel appealing for people to take a chance on an animal who still has “so much love left to give.”

“She (Liles) has always promoted dogs that need extra help but Odie is special to her,” Baker said. “They have a connection beyond animal control and shelter dog.”

Baker believes Odie would be best suited to a “slow-paced” home where he can get lots of rest.

“A fenced yard would be best because of his vision issues. No stairs would be preferable. With other dogs at his energy level would be nice,” she said. “We would love to see him in a home that wants to see him through his last days. He deserves a family that respects his boundaries and loves him completely.”