At two and three years old, one year is a long time to wait for a home. Dixie (2) and Daisy (3) are an adorable mother-and-daughter pair. They’re young, pretty and pocket-sized, exactly the kind of dogs you’d expect to be snapped up in a week. Instead, they spent a year being moved from pillar to post.
Their story began when their owner fell on hard times and found a foster home for them. When that foster could no longer keep them, they moved to a second foster home. After a while, that family couldn’t keep them either. From there, the pair went to kennels in Boksburg, and finally to Dogtown, BarkingMad’s sister shelter. Through every move, the BarkingMad adoptions team kept networking them and hoping the right person would see them.
Part of the challenge was first impressions. As Pekingese mixes, Dixie and Daisy have a cheeky streak, and with a fence between them and a passer-by, human or canine, they had plenty to say. The American Kennel Club notes that Pekes were bred to live in palaces and can be as serenely independent as the emperors who owned them. Behind the kennel gate, these two certainly held court.
Open the gate, though, and a different pair appeared: two little dancing queens, twirling and bouncing and never more than a step apart. Mother and daughter are joined at the hip. Through every new foster, every new kennel and every new face, they always had each other.
Those who took the time to get to know them saw who they really were. One of them was Dogtown’s Chairlady, who caught a glimpse of the pair and couldn’t get them off her mind. Every time she volunteered at the shelter, she found her way back to their kennel and spent her time with them.
Last week, she took the plunge and adopted them both.
After a year of waiting and more goodbyes than any dog should have to face, Dixie and Daisy are home at last, together, just as they’ve always been. Two dancing queens, finally with a palace of their own.
