CANMORE – Torro has left the building.
Emotions ran high last Friday (March 15) at the Bow Valley SPCA as staff and friends gathered for one last get together with their beloved long-term pitbull resident Torro, when it was discovered the pooch would be leaving the shelter permanently for his fur-ever home.
The small lobby was full of other furry friends, where pup-cakes and hats were available for tail-wagging partygoers and a giant goodbye card laid across the table with several heartfelt messages for the soon-to-be adopted pooch.
“Everyone is really happy, but I think the thought of coming in tomorrow and not having him like running into the lobby and come into the office and steal Zesus’ bed, it’s kind of sad,” Meghan Keelan, the Bow Valley SPCA manager explained at the furry farewell.
Torro joined the SPCA family more than a year ago after he was found in “not in great shape in a ditch” by a Canmore couple who were visiting Mexico at the time. The pair transported the sick pooch back to Canada where it was discovered Torro had a number of health issues – mange, Lyme disease and cancer, to name a few.
Realizing the price of the veterinary medical bills, the couple surrendered the pup to the Bow Valley SPCA, where staff started him on an intense recovery program.
Torro spent the first eight months undergoing chemotherapy, recovering from Lyme disease, getting rid of mange, healing from three broken bones and learning how to live a more toothless life after he had 11 fractured teeth removed.
“He kind of became the centre’s dog because we couldn’t put him up for adoption for awhile until we knew he was cleared medically … he’s definitely been through the most in terms of his recovery and being a pitbull, it’s never easy,” Keelan said.
After he was done his physical healing process, mixed with a little bit of behaviour training, the recovered pooch was finally deemed adoptable in January with several applications showing interest coming to the shelter.
“He was up for about a month and a half and had quite a few interests then at the beginning of March, someone came. She had to go through a series of interviews with multiple board members, mostly to make sure she knew everything he had been through and all his quirks,” Keelan said.
After the pup’s future home was found, the Bow Valley SPCA staff asked to keep Torro for an extra week so everyone could say one last goodbye.
“It’s bittersweet,” Keelan said full of emotion.
“But the general consensus is he deserves a forever home and we were his temporary home, and I think we gave him more love than we thought we could.
“He’s going to a place with a large yard, lots of running room. A place to be free and a place to, I don’t know, be away from his past. [We’re] stoked for him.”
Torro joined his fur-ever home in Oliver, B.C. on March 16.
