The yellow dog waited by the shelter door.
Her name is Mamas and for six months, she remains at Minneapolis Animal Care and Control (MACC) while her family recovers.
The door opened and a familiar figure entered. Mama’s tail wags faster and faster until her whole body moves. She stretched her back legs until she was nose-to-nose with her favorite person in the whole world — Laurena Carrizales Guerrero Celeste.
After six months of heartache, homelessness and hard work, they are coming home.
“People here are really generous. They have really good hearts,” said Celeste, a chef who turned to her city’s Animal Safety Net program when she and Mamas faced homelessness.
When people hit hard times, Minneapolis extends the safety net. Instead of forcing people to choose between caring for their pets and caring for themselves, Minneapolis Animal Care and Control offers a third option.
MACC will take care of you and your pet. If a pet owner is hospitalized or seeking shelter or undergoing treatment or escaping domestic abuse, a network of volunteers steps up to serve as pet families.
“We see so many people living in cars because they can’t take their pets to a shelter,” said Madison Weissenborn, volunteer and community partnership coordinator at MACC. Helping their pets, “hopefully, allows them to get help, or treatment, or whatever they need.”
Mamas was a little yellow puppy when Celeste adopted her seven years ago. It was difficult for both of them to be apart.
“There were a few times where I wanted to give up, where I thought, ‘I’m never getting her back,'” said Celeste, who at one point decided to put Mamas up for adoption, unsure if she would ever find a residence for both of them.
It was a rough transition for Mama too. She washed through a series of foster homes and potential adoptions. Each time, he returns to MACC’s downtown shelter.
Some dogs find the shelter a noisy, scary place. Mom liked it there. There are treats, there are enrichment activities, there is a run where he can romp with other dogs and there is a group of adoring people available to scratch his ears.
MACC volunteers worked on training and managing some of the behavioral issues that made Mamas difficult to place. Then the call came. If no one else adopted Mama, Celeste thought, would she be able to bring her home? For months, Celeste worked and rescued and missed her dog. He was about to move into an apartment that allowed pets.
“I’m actually more motivated” to find a place to live, he said, standing in the lobby at animal control as Mamas bounced up and down, peering at him through the window of a nearby room. “I really wanted to get her back. Everything worked out.”
Volunteers at Friends of Minneapolis Animal Care and Control spent six months hoping for a happy ending to Mama’s story. They decided to check him out in style.
Volunteers organized a housewarming drive that filled the MACC lobby with donations for Mamas and her family. Lamps, rugs, kitchen utensils. As Celeste reunites with her dog, donated beds and couches make their way to her apartment.
“There are days when you think, “Why am I doing what I’m doing?” Weissenborn said, smiling as the answers to that question filled the animal control lobby.
Beefaroni, a sunny little pit bull, walks by, returning from a walk around with a volunteer. A line of potential adopters waited to meet the dogs, cats and small animals that are always available for adoption at MACC.
Minneapolis has permanently waived pet adoption fees for its residents, hoping to make room in a shelter that is crying out for animals in need of a good home. The conventional wisdom used to be that you had to charge money for a pet if the owner was going to place any value on its life. But the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals encourages free adoptions. Their research found that most owners took the money they would have spent on adoptions and instead spent it on their pet’s care.
Even if you don’t want to adopt, MACC could use more volunteers and donations. Volunteer opportunities range from caring for a dog, pet or small animal in your home to swinging by when you’re on a lunchtime jog and taking a high-energy dog for a run. .
Meanwhile, Celeste has a message for anyone going through tough times out there.
“If anyone else is going through the same struggles as me,” she said. “Do not give up.”
