Rachael Church and Betty-Boo Photo: SUPPLIED/Rachael Church
A dog that spent more than 400 nights in a Northland animal shelter has finally found a loving home.
Betty, now known as Betty-Boo, was constantly overlooked by prospective owners for being too timid, but for one Northland couple she was the perfect fit.
Rachael Church is one of Betty-Boo's new mums. She told RNZ Afternoons that the challenge of taking care of such a timid dog was part of the appeal.
She said she caught sight of a story about Betty's plight in the Northern Advocate newspaper, and they were "desperate to have her" after reading the article about how the dog had been overlooked.
"It just broke our hearts, this story. We'd recently lost a dog too, so had been loosely thinking of getting another.
"It was just the perfect fit for us."
She said the dog was very lean and they had been told it was a staffy-lab cross, "probably with a bit of whippet".
Betty had spent 431 nights at the shelter, after being abandoned as a puppy.
For Church, it was love at first sight on the initial visit, but Betty "didn't want to know us".
"We'd been warned that she'd be like that. Very stand-offish, just watchful. But that was fine, we understood going in that we shouldn't expect to bond with her, that was unrealistic, and that was part of the appeal anyway, was her nature."
On the day they went to pick up Betty, Church cooked up some chicken in a pan, "hoping that was acceptable", although the dog would not come close to them for the 90 minutes they were at the animal shelter.
"It didn't put us off, we were confident we were the right parents for her. We just really wanted to give her a good home, especially knowing she had been there for so long."
Betty was very quiet on the ride home, and would not get out of the car.
"We were wondering how we were going to do this, the chicken wasn't working at that point."
But when Church and her partner brought out their other dog, Betty was instantly out of the vehicle.
"And honestly that night, she was a different dog, that sort of trust has been established, so fast.
"You should see her now, she is one happy girl."
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