If you’re at all connected to the Sacramento SPCA, then you’ve heard of Amy. This stocky pup spent over five months at the shelter waiting to find her new family.

Amy’s story is a familiar one – a senior Pittie mix brought to the Sacramento SPCA as a stray. We knew right away here was something special about this (not-so-little) lady! Our shelter medicine department developed a plan to work on weight loss, but in the meantime, we noticed she made an excellent body pillow.

Pittie mixes can take a little while to be adopted, due to reasons like lack of available housing that accepts certain breeds, previous bias regarding the breed, and an individual dog’s preferences (perhaps thinking cats are a little too fun to chase?).  Adding in more words like “senior” and “hypothyroidism,” and suddenly Amy had many strikes against her in finding that new potential family.

Our staff and volunteers quickly realized that Amy was quite the gem. We designated her as the official mobile dog and she went everywhere.

TV appearance? “Take Amy!” 

St. Patrick’s Day Parade? “Take Amy!” 

Yappy Hours? “Take Amy!”

Rivercats photoshoot? “Take Amy!”

Amy became the dog about town and everywhere she went, people loved her! But as the weeks went by, she stayed with us. Not that she seemed to mind too much – Amy loved her daily visits, frequent walks and (occasional, and always healthy!) treats. After hitting her 5-month shelter anniversary, staff decided to decorate her kennel and turn it into “Amy’s House.” A shelter staff member even painted her very own ‘paw-trait’ to go home with her future adopter…wherever they were! 

Little did we know, but for weeks on end, a girl and her grandmother visited each weekend to say hi to Amy. And on May 12th, 138 days after showing up at the Sacramento SPCA, the grandmother came back to adopt Amy!

Although the staff and volunteers will miss her terribly, we are so thrilled that Amy found her happy ending!