Rafael Valenzuela (unactive)

"We do adoption events every month. Yesterday was our biggest one. Forty-two dogs found homes. It was a wonderful day. Winston did not find a home. He is eleven years old. He is large. He is silver-gray and his whole muzzle is white and his eyes are the color of a winter morning and he is the gentlest dog I have ever put on a leash. He sat in the same spot for six hours. He did not pace. He did not bark. He watched every dog around him get chosen and he wagged his tail for every family that walked past him without stopping. Every single one. For six hours. At 5pm when the last family had left and the last car had pulled out of the parking lot I turned around and Winston was sitting at the edge of the empty lot wagging his tail at the space where the people had been. I sat down on the asphalt beside him. I put my hand on his silver back. He leaned into me. I don't have a word for what I felt. I have worked in rescue for nine years. I have never sat on a parking lot asphalt at the end of a failed adoption event and felt so completely undone and so completely certain simultaneously. Undone because he deserves everything. Certain because he is going to be okay. Both at the same time. Both because of him. He wagged at the empty parking lot. That is who Winston is. That is who he has been every day of his eleven years. Share this for Winston. He wagged at the empty parking lot. The least we can do is find him someone to wag at who stays.