Dog was rescued in SC before COVID hit. Now, he spends 4th birthday with new family

A dog was rescued before the COVID-19 pandemic — and now he’s adopted and celebrating another milestone, a South Carolina animal shelter said.

“Zach just turned 4 years old on Nov. 12 and we are absolutely thrilled that he did that in his new home,” the Humane Society of McCormick County wrote Nov. 17 on Facebook.

Zach’s journey to adoption was years in the making. In March 2020, he, his mother and his months-old siblings were found roaming the Mt. Carmel area, roughly 100 miles west of Columbia.

“They were battling the horrible (parvovirus), terrified and malnourished,” the shelter wrote in a past Facebook post.

The humane society took in the feral family, but one of the puppies died. Then the litter faced more setbacks.

“The volunteers worked hard to socialize them all but it was difficult because we were full so the pups had to share a pen with a sibling,” the humane society wrote. “Then COVID hit and we had less volunteers.”

Eventually, many of the surviving dogs were adopted. Zach, who was one of the “shyest” siblings, went into a foster care program where he learned commands and became familiar with a home environment, officials said.

Then, more than a year after the training started, Zach returned to the shelter in August. He went up for adoption and caught the eye of someone who has a “soft spot” for shy dogs and ones that look like Zach.

“He took Zach home on foster-to-adopt and fell in love,” the shelter wrote. “Zach now goes for hikes with his dog sister Dakota and is living a wonderful life.”

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