Playful dog with rough past was adopted — but it didn’t work out. She needs a new home

A “playful” dog with a rough past was adopted — but the situation didn’t work out.

Now, Roxie the North Carolina pup needs another new home.

“We cannot accurately express our heartbreak for Roxie,” the Lenoir County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) wrote Sept. 24 on Facebook. “She is an 8 year old girl who originally came to us as part of a cruelty case. She stayed with us for over a year. We cried when she got adopted and 4 months later she was returned for serious separation anxiety.”

Roxie’s journey at the SPCA started in February 2023, when she arrived skinny and apprehensive due to possible neglect. After she returned to the shelter in August, it said it hopes to find a new owner who has time to spend with her and can give her medication to help reduce her anxiety when they aren’t around.

“We need a hero and a miracle,” the shelter wrote on social media in August. “While Roxie is the perfect couch potato companion while her people are with her, she struggles with separation anxiety and who could blame her?!”

Roxie has shown destructive behavior when she’s alone. She has chewed things and broken from her crate, leading the SPCA to raise money for a specially-designed kennel to give to her next owner, office manager Taylor Milligan told McClatchy News in a phone interview.

In addition to Roxie’s separation anxiety, the shelter believes she’s being overlooked because she’s an older dog and barks at visitors at first.

“In a shelter, people often come in and they look for the most friendly and the most outgoing,” Milligan said. “While she is extremely friendly and outgoing, she doesn’t show well to begin with. She will bark, and that’s just because she’s loyal to us and she’s very protective of her area. And it deters people from interacting with her.”

Over time, Roxie has become known as a “silly” and “playful” mixed-breed dog. The pup, who is being treated for heartworms, also is “extremely smart,” according to Milligan.

As of Sept. 26, Roxie was still available for adoption at the SPCA in Kinston, a roughly 80-mile drive southeast from Raleigh. More details about the shelter’s adoption process can be found at lenoircountyspca.org .

“She needs someone and we need this win,” the SPCA wrote. “The shelter cannot be her last chapter.”

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