After 11 Years In Alabama Shelter, "Shy" 13-Year-Old Dog Finally Finds Forever Home

After more than a decade in a kennel, Fiona now has a yard, a couch, and four fur siblings.

It took 11 years of waiting and a 700 mile journey for a dog named Fergie to find her forever family, but now, at the age of 13, she’s finally home.

The brown, mixed-breed pup was born a stray in Alabama. She lived her first two years of life wild and on the run, and had zero human interaction until she was trapped by animal control.

Fergie spent the following 11 years in a kennel at Second Chance Shelter in Boaz, where, due to her shyness, she was overlooked time and time again.

Her luck only changed last month, when word of her situation reached a foster-based rescue that takes in senior, hospice, and special needs dogs in Wisconsin.

When Lindsey Decker, vice president of Albert’s Dog Lounge, first learned about Fergie from Second Chance Shelter’s partner in Wisconsin, she was stunned that the 13-year-old dog had spent nearly her entire life in the overcrowded shelter. Stunned, but not surprised.

Decker said that there are plenty of other senior dogs in the “exact same boat” as Fergie in the South, noting that “her story is not rare. It’s common… most folks just don’t know about it.”

According to Decker, “super seniors” like Fergie are often overlooked at shelters and are at the highest risk to be euthanized. While Second Chance Shelter doesn’t euthanize dogs due to old age, it was also no place for her to spend the rest of her days.

“I said ‘she can come to my house,” Decker recalled. “‘We need to get her out of there immediately.’”

WMTV, a local NBC affiliate, was there when Fergie arrived in Wisconsin on March 23. In addition to a news segment, Fergie also got a new name: Fiona.

The plan was for Fiona to stay with Decker until she finds a forever home.

“I knew that there was a possibility she was just going to be my dog if she was unable to acclimate to life,” she recalled. “She was just going to be my dog. And I was ready for that.”

But that wasn’t the case. Not only did Fiona transition well, but her story went viral, and by April 5, she had found the perfect home.

Carrie and Mike Saskowski had already adopted two dogs through Albert’s Dog Lounge when they fell in love with Fiona. Decker described their house in the suburbs of Milwaukee as a “brilliant little retirement community for canines” with four other senior dogs for Fiona to hang out with and a big fenced in yard, which is great, because “she absolutely has no concept of what a leash is.”

“I wanted her to experience her last days of life running freely in a yard without learning a new skill set,” Decker explained. “I wanted her to go to a home where there were other dogs and there are four other super seniors in the household. [Fiona] needed that companionship… So I got everything on my checklist.”

Decker, who receives daily updates from the Saskowskis, said and that Fiona is thriving in her new home, where she enjoys lounging on the couch and "prancing" around her new yard.

“The dog that you see in the kennel is capable of being a different dog. She just needed to get out of there,” she said. “If someone had given her a chance 10 years ago, who knows what she’d look like now. I’m just happy to be a part of this puzzle in her retirement years. It just fills my cup.”

Albert’s Dog Lounge will continue to pull dogs from Second Chance Shelter on a monthly basis. Two dogs are scheduled to be transported to Wisconsin in May, and Fiona’s kennelmate, Chip, is up next.

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