RANCHO PALOS VERDES—A dog that spent nearly two years waiting for a new home has been adopted by a family in Rancho Palos Verdes.
Melvin—who has since been renamed Loki—was matched to the Maguires, who were in search of the “perfect pit” to join their two other dogs, according to spcaLA officials.
The nearly four-year-old pit bull mix was adopted early this month after waiting 667 days—most of it at the spca’s Long Beach shelter and the last four months in foster care—and undergoing a $2,500 surgery.
He was originally classified as a lost dog by Long Beach Animal Care Services, and had been the longest-term resident at the spcaLA’s shelters.
“He’s going to have a great life now,” his new owner, Trish Maguire, said of Loki, describing the family’s new pet as “very excitable” and “very loving.”
She noted that she and her husband, John, and their two teenagers began looking for another dog because it was “too quiet with just two” after one of their canines, Romeo, died last December at age 14.
She said the family “just wanted to be able to save a dog,” and realized the pit bull formerly known as Melvin looked like their very first pit mix.
“He was one of nearly 1,300 animals adopted from the spcaLa since the beginning of the pandemic a year ago.
The shelter said the biggest challenges in finding a new home for Loki may have been the color of his coat—black with a little spot of white on his chest—and his breed.
“A dog with a long length-of-stay like Melvin’s receives hours of training and daily enrichment in order to remain mentally and physically resilient and stable in the shelter environment,” said Sara Taylor, the spcaLA’s director of animal behavior and training. “There is also a significant emotional investment because we become their interim family, waiting for someone to give them a chance to become a companion.”
Now, the spcaLA is hoping to find a home for another pit bull mix, Chato, who has been at the South Bay adoption center in Hawthorne since February 2020. The shelter recently posted a video on its Facebook page of the six-year-old male dog romping about in a birthday hat in hopes of attracting someone to adopt him.t
