When 9-year-old American Pit Bull Terrier Remy ended up in a kennel at the Hi-Tor Animal Care Center in Pomona, N.Y., it seemed she’d need some sort of divine intervention if she was ever going to find a happy home again.
Well, after months of hoping for a new family, it looks like someone heard Remy’s prayers. The gentle senior is enjoying her new life and new family after she was adopted by three nuns from the Sisters of Our Lady of Christian Doctrine in Nyack, N.Y., over the weekend.
Just last week, the sisters experienced heartbreak.
“We’ve had a dog in the home for the last 7 or 8 years, and our dog just died a week ago,” Sister Virginia Johnson explains.
They knew they wanted to get another furry friend, and they wanted to adopt from a local shelter. But before heading to the shelter, the three sisters discussed the type of dog they’d like to adopt together.
“I purposely wanted a dog that nobody else wanted,” Sister Veronica Mendez tells Hudson Valley News 12.
The three of them agreed — their main goal would be to find a dog who really needed them. As they toured the Hi-Tor shelter facility, they spotted Remy.
“[He was] very friendly right away, and she just seemed like she belonged,” Sister Johnson says of Remy. “So she’s a senior and we’re seniors, and she’s a gentle dog.”
Hi-Tor Executive Director West Artope tells the Huffington Post he was surprised and delighted the three nuns — all over 70-years-old — didn’t think twice about owning a Pit Bull.
“Most people have a pretty bad understanding of Pits,” Artope explains. “But Remy was sensitive to the sisters, especially to Sister Virginia, who walks with a cane. She kept up with her and was so attentive.”
The sisters and Remy hit it off right away. And because of Remy’s age, the sisters knew the shelter would have a hard time placing the senior dog into a home. It looked like it was a match made in heaven.
“I wanted to bring a dog home that might get euthanized if we didn’t take her. And when I noticed that the sign said ‘nine years,’ I said, ‘Virginia, we want this one, because nobody else is going to want her,’” says Sister Mendez.
Remy is a senior dog, and the sisters know she may only have a short time left to live. But that didn’t stop them from choosing Remy for their unique family.
“The fact that she’s older, I felt whatever time she has left she’ll have good years,” Sister Mendez says.
Staff and volunteers at the Hi-Tor shelter were so moved by the nuns’ kindness, Artope says, that a shelter volunteer and board member insisted on covering Remy’s adoption fee.
As for the sisters, though they are still grieving the loss of their late four-legged friend, they say Remy is providing them with all the comfort they need.
“We loved that dog very much, and it’s hard to get a successor but we got a good one,” says Sister Johnson. “So we are happy with who we got.”
“She’s given a lot of joy to our house,” another sister says of Remy.
Sources: Huffington Post, Hudson Valley News 12
