The night I lost Ruby the beagle, I saw Ruby the Lab," Heidi Weber, 45, told People magazine,
The same day Heidi Weber lost her rescue dog named Ruby, she stumbled upon another dog in need of a home, that was also named Ruby. The rest is history.
"The night I lost Ruby the beagle, I saw Ruby the Lab," Weber, 45, told People magazine.
She learned about the 11-year-old Labrador retriever mix when she visited Beth Stern's Instagram page — a page she said her nieces like to visit since Stern posts photos of foster pets up for adoption. "I did not plan to adopt another dog for a while. I lost my other dog in March 2020, and Ruby helped me get through that loss plus the pandemic. She was a good friend.”
Ruby was described as “sweet but timid” and had been brought to the New York-based North Shore Animal League America (NSALA) in early January after one of her owners died and her other caretaker was too frail to care for her, People reported.
”This poor girl was struggling and spent her days waiting for her human to come back to her. It was heartbreaking and we knew we had to pull out all the stops,” wrote NSAL on their Facebook page.
The non-profit reached out to Stern, who is their national spokesperson for pet fostering, hoping she would share it to her more than 600,000 Instagram followers, in hopes of finding Ruby a home. And, it worked.
On Jan. 19, NSAL posted the happy ending on their Facebook page “Happily the power of social media strikes again! Yesterday, Ruby was adopted! Thank you to all those who shared her story and were moved by Ruby’s story.”
Weber, who works as an executive director of a dental organization, drove down from her home in Maryland to NSAL to pick up her new best friend.
Weber and Ruby are doing great and now Weber hopes her adoption story will inspires others to adopt other senior pets waiting for a forever home.
She created an Instagram account for Ruby, with one post marking the beginning of their journey together. "On our way home to Maryland, my new mom told me that last week, she lost her adopted beagle Ruby, who was 18 and just had enough. Her old body gave out. My new mom was heartbroken and was going to take a break, but then she saw Beth Stern’s post about me, and she wanted to take a chance and applied. My name is Ruby so how could she resist? We both need a fresh start in 2021. Thanks for joining our journey!"
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