After 550 Days, Caramel Finds a Home

Feb 28, 2020

When Caramel showed up at our medical center on August 22, 2018 no one knew it would take 550 days for her to find the perfect family. 

That hundreds of staff and volunteers would fall in love with her during 18 months with us, well, we could have guessed that immediately. Caramel’s a 69-pound lap dog in a Catahoula Leopard mix’s body. 

She’s a ball of energy one moment, asleep at your feet the next. A former foster described her as the “perfect mix of lazy and playful.” And yes, it’s true, Caramel never saw a squirrel she didn’t want to greet. Loudly.

Why was her PAWS Chicago stay so long? Caramel’s a complicated pup with a complicated past, a classic example of a hard-to-home animal. And she’s not alone. We’re continuously looking for hero-adopters, people with experience and patience, big hearts and the backyards to match. 

Caramel marked her third birthday on February 23, and she got the best present of all–a home and family. 

"Caramel getting adopted by her foster mom was one of the highlights of my time at PAWS," said Brian Zeman, PAWS Chicago's Assistant Director: Adoption Foster Program. "While she could be a little fearful of strangers, everyone who got to spend time with her fell in love.  We’ll miss seeing her smile in the building, but we’re all super happy that her new mom gets to see her smile every day.”

Join us in congratulating Caramel!