Awww, who doesn’t love a good pick me up story? A pit bull named Melvin spent nearly two years waiting to find his forever home, and in early March, he finally found it.
Melvin, approximately three years and 10 months old, was originally a lost dog in the care of the Long Beach Animal Care Services and was then transferred over to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Los Angeles (spcaLA) due to a partnership between the two organizations. He had been there ever since, for a total of 667 days.
Luckily, he was recently adopted by Patricia Nevi-Maguire and her family, and is now part of a loving home with two other pit bull siblings, Tibbs and Luna.
The shelter Melvin crashed at for all those years believe his breed played a role in adoption hesitation. Pit bulls are viewed as aggressive, difficult and mean — and that means pitties spend three times longer waiting at shelters than other breeds, says a study published by “PLOS One.”
The trick is labeling the dog as a “pit bull” — even breeds that look similar to one but are called something else have a better chance of finding a forever family more quickly.
Nevi-Maguire, from California, is no stranger to raising pit bulls. Including Melvin, who now goes by Loki, she has had eight pit bulls and usually has three at any given time.
“I love them to death and they have such a bad rap,” she told Good Morning America. “And it’s unfortunate. They’re such great family dogs.”
She and her family specifically look for pit bulls when the time to adopt their next dog comes around.
After a few weeks in his new home, Melvin is already sleeping and eating together with his new siblings.