Zuzu the 2-year-old German shepherd was abandoned at the Downey Animal Care Center in California, after her dad had passed away and her owners found her too sad to deal with.
She had jumped into the neighbours’s garden, and was taken by animal control when the neighbours realised how unhappy Zuzu was.
Slowly Zuzu started to settle in at the centre. Staff described her as ‘beautiful and loving’, and she was gradually getting back to her happy self.
Then, one day, her previous owners showed up at the shelter.
Zuzu wagged her tail, barked, and generally looked overjoyed when she spotted her former family walking by the fence.
‘She looked like the happiest dog,’ wrote a volunteer at the shelter on Facebook. ‘Yeah, she’s going home.’
But after looking at Zuzu, her owners kept walking.
Desi spoke to the family and discovered that actually, they weren’t there to pick up their dog. They had come to the shelter to adopt a new pet.
So essentially, they had decided that Zuzu wasn’t good enough and wanted to replace her with a newer, happier model.
Zuzu had to watch as her former owners walked away and left her at the shelter.
It’s not clear whether the family were able to adopt a new dog or not, but Zuzu has now been given to a rescue group that is dedicated to finding her a new home.
Here’s hoping that Zuzu will find a loving home, with a family that won’t abandon her when things get tough.
Poor Zuzu deserves so much better.
