10 Photos, 10 Quotes From PETA Fieldworkers, and Nearly 10 Years Later: Finally, ‘Rusty Is Free!’
After more than 10 years spent outside 24/7 in isolation, anyone would reserve the right to be a little rusty at the whole living-the-good-life thing. But when PETA’s Community Animal Project (CAP) was finally given custody of this longtime fieldworker favorite, he was quick to prove that he has no qualms about enjoying “retirement bliss.”
The first time one of my coworkers met Rusty, they noted that he was “chained in a pen.” During that visit, the fieldworker urged Rusty’s owner to let PETA give the sweet-natured Lab mix a chance at adoption into a safe home where he’d be showered with love and affection. But she declined—and it wouldn’t be the last time. My fellow CAP workers and I spent nearly 10 years visiting Rusty, making sure he had fresh water to drink during the sweltering summer and insulating straw bedding during the freezing winter. Each time we took notes about our visits, we couldn’t help but highlight how cheerful and eager the aging dog always seemed to be, as I detailed in the note below from my first time meeting him:
“Sweet” and other adoring adjectives are all over Rusty’s case sheet, as in this note from my coworker Hollie …
… or these mini love letters from Ashley, another PETA fieldworker:
But our write-ups about Rusty weren’t always jovial, like this inclusion from Ashley, written after one visit on a miserably hot day in July:
This note was written after CAP’s 12th time visiting the resilient Rusty, when fieldworkers were again denied permission to find the deserving dude a loving home indoors:
But fieldworkers took a page from Rusty’s book—he wasn’t giving up, and neither were we. Our shared hardiness paid off. One day last month, Chris—the first PETA fieldworker to meet Rusty—received the life-changing call we had all hoped for and wrote:
After roughly a dozen dangerously scorching summers, Rusty’s owner was finally taking a page from our book, as Chris noted:
Chris wasted no time in picking up Rusty, and the now-adoptable dog wasted no time in making up for lost time.
Although Rusty is roughly 12 years old, the finally free dog is still quite spunky and spry, his foster guardian reports. But like any senior dude, he also loves a good couch nap sesh. Like most of the dogs my coworkers and I visit, Rusty has heartworm disease, for which he’s currently receiving treatment, courtesy of PETA. After more than a decade of being deprived of the good life that every dog deserves, Rusty isn’t wild about spending his twilight years with any feline friends. He’d be happiest soaking up all the attention of a loving family for the rest of his life.
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