Being a complete and total sap when it comes to animals, I couldn’t help but want to share a story I came across on TheBlaze featuring a four-legged furry lad. Homeless and showing signs that he had been abused in the past, and, apparently, shot in the face — who does something that awful? — he was not feeling the vibes coming from the Antrim County Animal Control shelter. It simply cramped his style.
Scout, a 65-pound mutt roughly a decade in age, made like Tim Robbins in “The Shawshank Redemption” and broke out of the shelter not once, not twice, but several times. Scout used jumping skills that would make even Michael Jordan jealous to get over the ten-foot-high chain link fence and an additional six-foot privacy fence, before making his way safely across the highway, a report from the Detroit Free Press said.
However, this isn’t the story of a dog who just liked to roam free and wild. As it turns out, there was a destination in mind for Scout: the Meadow Brook Medical Care Facility, a long-term, 82-bed nursing home that houses senior citizens.
Here’s more from TheBlaze:
The first time he got out, Scout made his way inside the nursing home and slept in the lobby on a leather loveseat. A nurse found Scout the next morning then called animal control, who acknowledged he had gone missing the night before.
Scout made another great escape just a few nights later. Again, he found his groove on the leather loveseat, and again he slept until caught.
The Free Press indicated that, despite being carted back to the shelter a second time, Scout wasn’t ready to call it quits, making his way to his spot in the nursing home a third time just a few nights later.
“He was pretty relentless in his pursuit to be here,” Stephanie Elsey, who works as a clinical care coordinator at the nursing home, stated during an interview with The Washington Post. “He found his home.”
After the dog broke free from the shelter for a third time, one of the employees working for the nursing home decided to take Scout to their own home. Alas, things did not work out and the pairing was just not a good fit. However, many conversations were had by staff members about the possibility of the home itself adopting the lovable mutt.
“I’m a person who looks at outward signs, and if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be,” Marna Robertson, the administrator for the nursing home, said during an interview with the Free Press. “He did that one time, two times, three times, and obviously that’s something you should pay attention to. And I asked the staff, ‘Well, he wants to be here. Would anybody like to have a dog?'”
The staff was on board with the idea, and so were residents.
One of the administrative assistants, Rhonda Tomzack, went on to say, “I think it reminds them of being home.… When you’re home you have your pets, and you don’t get to have that here. Having a dog around makes it feel like home.”
Scout has been calling Glacier Hill, one of the units at the facility, his home since 2017. That particular unit houses about 20 individuals.
And Scout is quite intelligent, as he often visits residents, even if their doors are closed, because he taught himself how to open them. Scout especially likes to pay a visit to residents he knows will give him a treat. Just like a man, right? Thinking with his stomach.
One of the residents, Shirley Sawyer, 82, remarked, “He’ll always let you pet him and lets you talk to him if you need someone to talk to.… It’s very nice.”
Sawyer’s brother, Bob Shumaker, also lives at the facility and thoroughly enjoys having Scout around. He often pretends to be snoozing while the dog nudges him until he finally gives in and provides the precious pup with a much-desired biscuit.
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While it’s clear Scout has seen some seriously bad days in his past, the dog is extremely gentle with residents.
Robertson said, “He certainly has a penchant for the elders. He’s very in tune with what they need, especially our very vulnerable population. If they have dementia or if they’re dying, he knows that, and he will go and be with them and comfort them. He must’ve just felt like he needed to be here.”
At a time when most of the news we consume from our social media feeds can be demoralizing, it’s nice every once in a while to read a story that hits you smack in the feels. Scout’s tale is legitimately like a real-life Hallmark movie. You know, before they went woke.
Dogs are so awesome.
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