Stunning Tessa, an Australian Shepherd mix, came into a South Carolina kill shelter as a very young puppy with her five siblings. It was immediately clear to the shelter staff that something was wrong with her eyes and that her vision was impaired. A few rescues wanted to take her siblings and leave her behind, but ANCAR’s motto is no family member left behind, so we immediately got these babies out of the shelter before they could get sick.
We had Tessa examined by our vet the day after we took her, and she confirmed that Tessa was definitely visually impaired, if not completely blind. Because she was so young and her other senses were heightened, it was difficult to tell if she would regain any vision. Tessa’s amazing foster family worked hard to get her trained so an adoptive family wouldn’t have to, and they socialized her with everyone. Over time, it appeared that Tessa’s vision in one of her eyes had improved slightly, even though she remained completely blind in her other eye.
Even though people kept commenting on how beautiful Tessa was, she only received one application that was not approved and got no inquiries. Finally, the perfect couple submitted an application for her. Even though they were about an hour and a half away, Tessa’s foster mom went all the way to their house because she wanted to see for herself where her baby would possibly be living (rather than letting a volunteer who lived closer conduct the home visit). They hit it off with Tessa, and her foster mom gave her seal of approval for this darling girl to finally be home!