Latest news with #Cabbage
Newsweek
01-07-2025
- General
- Newsweek
'Hearts Break a Little' Over Face of Shelter Dog Waiting 7 Months for Home
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. A dog that has been waiting for a home for more than seven months is still waiting patiently for a family to call his own. Picked up as a stray over seven months ago, Cabbage holds the title of the longest resident at Tift County Animal Shelter in Georgia. Despite his affectionate nature and goofy charm, no one ever came to reclaim him—and no one has shown any interest in him since. "He is goofy, loving, and wonderful with people," Candice Hernandez, rescue coordinator at Tift County Animal Shelter and cofounder of Tift Animal Rescue, told Newsweek. Around three years old, Cabbage is described as a "mixed breed sweetheart," and despite capturing hearts on Facebook after rescue workers shared: "Our hearts break a little more each day he waits." Users on Facebook described him as "precious," "handsome," and a "beautiful boy," yet nobody has come forward to help him yet. Shelter volunteers describe him as a gentle companion who gets along well with other dogs, though they always encourage adopters to bring their own pets for a meet-and-greet. Like many larger dogs in a sea of hopeful eyes and wagging tails, Cabbage often gets overlooked. Pictures of Cabbage the dog, who is still waiting for a home after over 7 months in the shelter. Pictures of Cabbage the dog, who is still waiting for a home after over 7 months in the shelter. Tift Animal Rescue "What he really wants is to be part of a family," said Hernandez. "A place to stretch out, get some treats, and just be loved for who he is." In 2024, approximately 7 million animals entered U.S. shelters and rescues, according to Shelter Animals Count—an increase of nearly 3 percent from 2023. By the end of the year, 103,000 more pets had entered shelters than had exited, contributing to an ongoing capacity crisis in U.S. shelters. Around 748,000 animals experienced non-live outcomes, including euthanasia, death in care, and being lost in care, in 2024. While this represents a 1.6 percent decrease compared to 2023 and a 20 percent drop from 2019, the number remains high. Dogs made up a growing share of these outcomes, with euthanasia rates rising to 9 percent, compared to 7 percent in 2019. For Hernandez and co-founder of Tift Animal Rescue Leah Robbins, telling stories like Cabbage's is both a calling and a challenge. As full-time workers and parents who volunteer their time, they do everything they can to market adoptable dogs. But resources are limited, and there's never enough time. Cabbage is by far from the only dog who has been left waiting for a home in a shelter. Earlier this month a dog was cheered out of the shelter when she finally found a home after over 640 days. While another dog is still waiting in his kennel after over 770 days. Suffering "severe kennel stress," Usopp is struggling to find a home while waiting in the South Florida-based shelter. Do you have funny and adorable videos or pictures of your pet you want to share? Send them to life@ with some details about your best friend, and they could appear in our Pet of the Week lineup.
The Guardian
30-04-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
‘When she first gave me her paw, my heart melted': here's what I've learned about taking on a rescue dog
When a trembling dog was placed in my arms in the early hours of a December Saturday I was not too concerned by her terrified state. After all, I knew about rescue dogs. Cabbage, our lovely collie cross who had died at the beginning of the year, had come from a Dogs Trust rescue centre 15 years earlier, and had also been pretty nervous at first. I was confident that Sophie, a one-year-old of indeterminate breed (but with a lot of German shepherd), brought to us on a van from Romania, would, like Cabbage, quickly settle down in her new home. How wrong I was. Our new dog seemed frightened of my wife and I, and our house, and desperately searched for the smallest space she could find, eventually settling behind a sofa. The next morning, I was keen to restart the early dog walks which had been a key feature of my exercise regime since I was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 2019. But Sophie was going nowhere. When we took her into the garden just to get her used to the idea of a walk she crawled under a seat, then dug her heels in when we attached a lead to her collar. For the first six months she spent 90% of her time in her safe place, always hiding there when visitors came to the house. Things only began to improve when our vet prescribed her a drug called fluoxetine, otherwise known as Prozac, but it still took more than a year for us to get her beyond the garden for a walk. Even today, more than two years after she arrived, Sophie remains a nervous creature, scared of crowds and terrified of small children. What I have learned is that you cannot expect a rescue dog, particularly one from abroad, to fit the template of the family pet you have imagined. Going for a walk, for instance, may be something you enjoy but it may be a completely alien concept to a dog. We knew pitifully little about the pet we chose from the website of a UK-based Romanian couple, who were extremely helpful, even offering to take Sophie back, but perhaps a little optimistic in their description of her as a dog who 'loves everybody and is just looking for her forever home'. We did know that she was among a litter of puppies found by a vet abandoned by the roadside and then handed to the vet's father who had kept them in his barn. They appeared not to have been mistreated but knew only the barn and the old man. They had not been socialised. But here's what is aggravating – two of Sophie's siblings later came to the UK and settled down far more easily, never showing the same level of anxiety, despite having spent longer in the Romanian barn than their sister. It is very hard to predict how a dog will turn out but you can prepare yourself by spending far more time than we did getting to know the animal. For most people, that will mean meeting the dog beforehand. That will be difficult if you are looking to bring in a pet from overseas, although some dogs are fostered on arrival in the UK, giving them time to acclimatise in the homes of experienced people before being offered for sale. Sophie – and our wonderful dog behaviourist Si Wooler – have taught me another key lesson. I have never been particularly patient, but despite my initial horror when people told me it could take months, even years, for Sophie to settle, I have learned, as Si puts it, to move at the pace of the dog. That has meant giving some things up. I realised at Christmas that I had not been abroad once in 2024, the first year in decades that my passport had remained in a drawer. And Sophie has made us temporarily antisocial. Since coming out from behind the sofa, she has guarded our front door, barking furiously at anyone who dares come to the house. But in March we had our first dinner party in more than two years. Following the usual slightly panicky 'get out of my house' welcome, Sophie came and sniffed them and settled down, while prospecting for the odd crisp. It was a reminder of how far we had come. Sophie may never be what I thought of as a 'normal' dog before she arrived but, after all the struggles and setbacks, she is making progress and every day seems to trust us a little bit more. When she first gave me her paw, my heart melted. In the end, there is a simple truth about our rescue dog – she's beautiful and we love her. That's all that matters. Sophie From Romania: A Year of Love and Hope with a Rescue Dog by Rory Cellan-Jones is published by Square Peg at £22. To support the Guardian, order your copy at Delivery charges may apply.
Japan Times
31-03-2025
- Sport
- Japan Times
Giants rally to beat Swallows in dramatic season opener
The Yomiuri Giants won the Central League pennant last season. On Friday night at Tokyo Dome, the reigning champions kicked off the 2025 campaign with a dramatic start to their quest to repeat. The Giants rallied from three runs down to tie the game in the ninth inning, and Gakuto Wakabayashi hit a sayonara single in the 10th to lift the Kyojin to a 6-5 win over the Tokyo Yakult Swallows in the season opener at Tokyo Dome on Friday night. Wakabayashi's fourth hit of the night was his biggest, and most of the 42,270 fans in attendance chanted his name as the Giants celebrated on the field. Yomiuri trailed most of the night and entered the ninth behind 5-2. Takuya Kai singled to start the inning and fan favorite Hisayoshi Chono hit a one-out double to put runners on the corners. Wakabayashi singled to make the score 5-3. The next batter, Trey Cabbage, was hit by a pitch to load the bases. "It kind of made me mad," Cabbage said half-jokingly after the game. "I wanted to hit." Naoki Yoshikawa tied the score with a two-run single. Closer Raidel Martinez, one of the club's prized free-agent pickups during the offseason, retired the top of the Swallows lineup in order in the 10th in his Giants debut. Kai singled to begin the bottom of the 10th and was lifted for a pinch runner. Makoto Kadowaki bunted the runner over and manager Shinnosuke Abe sent Takumi Oshiro to the plate as a pinch hitter. After Oshiro struck out, Wakabayashi ended the game with a hit into left field. Wakabayashi went 4-for-6 with a pair of RBIs as the leadoff man on opening night. "It was a unique atmosphere, and I tried to give the team courage as the first batter," he said. He joked he was nervous he might not do as well in the next game. 'It's important that we keep it going,' he said. 'I still feel a little uneasy about tomorrow, so I want to sleep well tonight.' Cabbage, hitting in the No. 2 spot behind Wakabayashi, was 3-for-4 with a two-run home run in his NPB debut. "My job is to get on base in front of those big guys who can drive me in," Cabbage said. "So that was one thing I was trying to do, was just be aggressive and barrel some stuff and try to make something happen, and let the guys behind us drive us in." Raidel Martinez, one of the team's prized free-agent pickups during the offseason, pitched a 1-2-3 10th and earned the win in relief. Swallows reliever Noboru Shimizu was charged with the loss. The late heroics took Yomiuri starter Shosei Togo off the hook. Togo allowed four runs — two earned — over five innings. Yakult seemed to be in control after taking a 4-0 lead in the fifth on run-scoring hits by Yoshihiro Akahoshi, Yuhei Nakamura, who drove in two runs with a single, and Haruki Nishikawa. Domingo Santana made it 5-0 with a home run to start the sixth. The Giants began to rally in the eighth, with Wakabayashi opening the frame with a single and Cabbage connecting on his first NPB home run. Cabbage's blast seemed to fire up both his teammates, who celebrated in the dugout, and the fans, who immediately turned up the volume in the dome. The home run set the stage for the rally that eventually put Yomiuri on top. "We got a great group of guys in there," Cabbage said. "It's fun to be around them, fun to show up for work every day. Just the energy, feeding off each other is amazing."
