Dog spent 200 days in shelter — then came good news. ‘There wasn’t a dry eye in sight’

A dog was a father figure to puppies at a shelter — but needed a home of his own.

Then after more than 200 days of waiting, the North Carolina shelter said Chance the dog was adopted.

“There wasn’t a dry eye in sight,” the Yancey County Humane Society wrote July 8 on Facebook. “He has hit the jackpot with his new family and we have no doubt they will have many adventures together!”

The tearful adoption came after Chance first arrived at the shelter in August 2023. The dog was abandoned when his previous owner went to prison.

“He was adopted shortly after but that only lasted a couple of months,” shelter director Renee Tomberlin told McClatchy News in an email. “Unfortunately the people were not caring for him appropriately and animal control brought him back to us.”

Chance then spent 221 days in the shelter, becoming its longest resident. The shelter posted videos of him frolicking and enjoying treats as he kept being overlooked.

“I believe the reason he was not adopted is simply his size,” Tomberlin wrote. “That’s all we could figure out because he has the absolute best personality.”

The shelter didn’t share more details about Chance’s size but said he became known for interacting with some of its smallest residents.

“We called him Papa Chance because every time we had a litter of puppies he would play with them in the play yard almost like their father,” Tomberlin wrote.

Then months after Chance’s arrival, the shelter went online to share the emotional news that he finally “left the building.” Several social media users congratulated the pup as he went home with his new owner.

The Yancey County Humane Society is in Burnsville, a roughly 35-mile drive northeast from the popular mountain town of Asheville.

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