For so many animals that use to live on the streets or for those left behind by the careless owners, to move into a shelter is definitely an improvement. Unfortunately, for many of those shelter animals the adoption doesn’t come right away, so their lives in there could become pretty lonely.
Due to their backgrounds and after being forced to be through a lot, it’s very hard for these animals to trust humans, again. And because of that, their chances to find a new home became even lower.
Thankfully, there are still a lot of people eager to help these poor souls. And this lady from Pittsburgh is the perfect example. In a deep, kind gesture, the woman decided to pay a visit to a local shelter to read for the senior dogs there to let them know they’re not alone. To make them feel loved again!
A volunteer at the shelter in Pennsylvania, captured the touching moment on camera and shared the heart-warming snaps online. “This woman comes to my local humane society and sits in front of the dogs cage and reads books to the dogs,” the reddit user puglife123 wrote.
He also encouraged other people to volunteer for helping these animals. “They always need volunteers,” he wrote. “You can do anything from dog walking, cat cuddling, to helping with the rabbits! I don’t get there as often as I would like because of work, but when I do it makes my day so much happier.”
Apparently, the woman’s adorable gesture had a powerful echo. Shortly after, the Humane Society of Missouri started a new program called the Shelter Buddies Reading Program. In order to improve the animal’s chances of finding loving owners the shelter invited young children, with ages 6-15, to read for the animals. And the idea proved to be a really successfully one.
“Dogs in a shelter environment exhibit a lot of signs of anxiety and show stress signals, so we wanted to do something to comfort them. We have a lot of children in our area who are really engaged and they ask, ‘How can I help?'” said JoEllyn Klepacki, assistant director of the Missouri Humane Society.
h/t: boomviral | thedodo | boredpanda
