A rescue dog that must have feared the worst after being put in a kennel while her owner was away reacted with delight after returning home.
In a video posted to TikTok by Diana Svensson, an English setter named Penny can be seen bounding around the garden outside the home they share. It’s clear whatever fears Penny might have had were unfounded, and her joy at discovering this is apparent.
She’s not the only one enjoying the moment either. Svensson was similarly emotional at seeing her rescue dog’s moment of realization play out in front of her.
Svensson has always been drawn to setters. “When I was growing up, I had an Irish setter by the name of Ronja from the age of 7 until 14,” she told Newsweek.
English setter Penny was excited to be home after a four-day stay at a kennel. Her owner says, “Families had adopted her, then taken her back to the rescue center.”
dianadean49/TikTok
“My parents got divorced and we ended up raising her in a flat with my mother, with the constant guilt trip of not being able to provide the freedom she so very much deserved at the same time as she was my only friend and meant the world to me.”
In what she describes as a “weak moment,” Svensson eventually agreed to give Ronja to a family that lived in the countryside and would give her the freedom she needed and deserved.
“I tearfully agreed out of guilt, being in school all day, only being able to walk her no more than an hour a day and leaving her alone for so long,” she said.
Svensson still remembers the day the family went to visit Ronja a few months later. “When I was trying to leave, she was pressing her body against the car with her tail between her legs, trying to get in.”
“I understood at that moment she had spent every moment for the last few months waiting for us to come back and pick her up.”
More time passed until one day Svensson bumped into the son of the family that took Ronja in. She discovered, to her horror, that Ronja had stopped eating and ultimately ended up being shot dead by the boy’s father.
The guilt Svensson felt was unbearable. “I felt I betrayed her. Let her down,” she said. “She was trying to tell me that day by the car, that I was…to not abandon her, to take me back home.”
Svensson didn’t have a dog again until she got married in her mid-30s. Against her wishes, her husband brought home two rottweilers and a Staffordshire bull terrier. Suddenly, she fell back in love with caring for dogs. When she got divorced three years later, Svensson decided she wanted another setter in her life. That was when she decided to “take the leap” and rescue Penny.
“Her background was scatty. She had been let down many times,” Svensson said. “Families had adopted her, then taken her back to the rescue center. She has been let down a lot, and she is not easy.”
Penny avoided eye contact with Svensson for the first couple of months of their time together. On one occasion, she ran out into traffic, suffering injuries that led to some “very expensive vet bills” for her owner.
But Svensson never gave up on her, remembering Ronja and what had happened all those years ago. Then, one day, it clicked for Penny.
“Suddenly, one day she realized I was not going anywhere, and she paw-stamped my heart,” Svensson said. Penny began to come out of her shell, revealing a sweet and playful personality.
“She is as all setters are: hypersensitive, funny, silly, insane and energetic, but oh my dear, do I love her,” Svensson said. “She crawls up in my arms like only a child or a rescue dog would do.”
Penny is pictured with owner Diana Svensson. “I won’t let her down the same way others have let her down so many times before,” she says.
Penny Svensson
Dogs know when their human is away. They feel it. A 2011 study published in Applied Animal Behaviour Science highlighted just how much they do.
Researchers recorded 12 privately owned dogs with no history of separation anxiety on three occasions when left alone at home. In the first, they were filmed greeting their owner after 30 minutes of separation, while the second came after being separated for two hours and the third when four hours had ended.
They found the dogs greeted their owners with more enthusiasm after being reunited once two hours had passed than they did after just half an hour. The reaction was similarly intense after four hours.
With their unique bond, Penny’s response to seeing Svensson after some time away is similarly strong. That much is clear in the video she shared to her TikTok account, @dianadean49, which shows how he reacted after returning from a four-day stay at a holiday kennel while she was away.
Penny has been adopted and abandoned before. She knows no different and must have assumed the same story was playing out again. Once she realized that wasn’t the case and she was back home, her joy was unbridled.
“I know she has to get used to being away from me, but the fear in her eyes when I leave, and the absolute surprise that I am not letting her down by coming back, is just out of this world,” Svensson said.
“I have to slowly teach her I can go away, but I won’t let her down the same way others have let her down so many times before. I owe Ronja’s memory as much, and Penny knows that.”
