Every day, cats and dogs are taken in by animal shelters across the nation.

Pet owners who are unable to care for their animals frequently abandon them. Most of the time, these former owners have the greatest of intentions and think that their pets will quickly find new homes.

Many people, however, are unaware that some of these animals are slaughtered. Some shelters do kill animals, while some don’t until four days after the animals are taken in. Animals in shelters need to be adopted and given new homes as quickly as possible for a number of reasons.

Waffle Sizzli, a stray pit bull, is one of the shelter’s lucky canines. She was saved and placed in a home by Richmond Animal Care and Control (RACC) in November 2022. She was still at the shelter in January 2023, awaiting adoption. She has now stayed in the shelter the longest.

Waffle adored the RACC staff’s pats and cuddles, but she soon developed a new interest at the shelter: stuffies, or soft toys. When brought inside the office of RACC director Christie Peters, Waffle first saw toy animals. As she arrived, there were several stuffed animals waiting for her. She cared deeply about them. She moved the items from the other office by moving across the hallway. Peters alleged, “She brought them back to my room so she could have more.”

She frequently received her favorite plush animals from Waffle. Waffle was lounging in her crib and interacting with the toys. She always had one or more toys with her when she got out of bed. She brought her toys back inside after taking her toys outside to use the restroom.

She cherished a red bone like a stuffed toy. He was second, although she occasionally fell over his dangling legs. According to Peters, it was third in the lineup and she frequently carried it. Waffle rarely interacted with the other dogs at the shelter but always proudly displayed her toys as she passed by cages housing other canines. She was proud to display her toys, but she wasn’t interested in using them for a game of tug-of-war.

She didn’t want us to take them; she just wanted them delivered to us. All she asked was that we admire her beautiful stuffed animals, which we gladly did. Peters said that we were just audience members to what seemed to be a daily Waffle Sizzli show. After spending three months in the shelter, Waffle Sizzli was adopted after three months. When her new owner saw a video of her interacting with her stuffed animals, he was immediately won over.

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