Adog who has been at a New York animal shelter for 500 days is showing heartbreaking signs he is struggling without a home to call his own.
When Jeremy was found wandering around outside a 7-Eleven on Long Island in July 2023, he was about as happy a dog as you could find in that kind of situation.
“The people who found him said he was friendly,” a spokesperson for the Town of Hempstead Animal Shelter in Wantagh told Newsweek. “Jeremy ran right up to them, and they brought him right to us.”
They didn’t know anything about Jeremy’s life before he arrived at the shelter. But in the months that followed, he showed himself to be an active dog eager to learn and play.
“Jeremy loves going on long walks on our local creek trail,” the shelter said. “He has made great progress walking on a leash and stays focused on his handler. He loves playing with squeaky toys and working on commands.”
Jeremy has learned how to respond to commands like “sit, down, wait, touch, paw and other paw” and is considered “extremely smart and willing to work for treats” by those who are training him.
“He is very friendly with all people and has no stranger danger to speak of,” the shelter said. “Jeremy has many handlers at the shelter and is considered a volunteer favorite. We love Jer-Bear. That’s his nickname.”
Unfortunately, being in the shelter for such a long period of time has started to get to him.
Jeremy’s plight was highlighted in a video posted to the Instagram channel the.invisible.8, which was set up to shine a light on eight adoptable dogs at the Town of Hempstead Shelter that have been waiting too long to find a forever home.
“He’s been at the shelter over a year is starting to impact him negatively,” the shelter spokesperson said. “He’s struggling with being in the kennel for hours upon hours. He often looks tired and stressed and paces in his kennel.”
His situation is beginning to take a physical toll as well.
“He is starting to lose fur and his skin is irritated, showing the effects of long-term shelter life,” the shelter said.
Jeremy cuts a forlorn figure in the video posted with the caption accompanying the footage of him in his kennel noting “the patches of lost fur are saying he’s had enough.”
Though he would make the perfect pet in the right kind of home, the shelter has some ideas as to why he so far may have struggled to find that special someone.
“We think Jeremy has not been adopted because he needs to be a solo pet as well as his size and, unfortunately, his color,” they said. “Being a large, black pit bull is sometimes a tough sell.”
Sadly, Jeremy fits the profile of many long-term shelter stays. A 2021 study in the journal Animals sought to identify some of the most commonly found characteristics of long-term shelter dogs.
The study found, among other things, that larger male dogs who were deemed to be a “dangerous breed” tended to dominate the long-term stays at shelter settings in the U.S.
The Town of Hempstead Animal Shelter is not going to give up on finding Jeremy a home, though.