Dog Found ‘Eating Stones out of Desperation’ Suffers Adoption Heartbreak

A stray dog who has endured the toughest of starts to life has suffered the added heartbreak of being adopted and then returned.

Casper’s story was shared by RSPCA Brighton in the south of the U.K. and is almost too heartbreaking to believe. The animal rescue charity said Casper was first found “as a stray on a beach, eating stones out of desperation.”

An RSPCA Brighton spokesperson told Newsweek: “Casper was found abandoned as a stray and was starving, so resorted to eating anything he could find.”

As a result, Casper was required to undergo a major operation to save his life and remove the stones from his stomach before they did any damage, the spokesperson said.

Incredibly, Casper escaped these desperate circumstances unscathed and, soon enough, attracted interest from a visitor who decided to adopt him.

That could have been the end of Casper’s story, but fate had other plans. Sadly, sometimes adoptions don’t work out, and it is no one’s fault.

“His first rehoming failed as the resident dog really didn’t like him, and it was causing her to be very unhappy,” the RSPCA Brighton spokesperson said.

The experience of arriving and then leaving the shelter only to return again must surely have impacted Casper, who had had little in the way of stability in his life up to this point.

Casper has now spent over 170 days with RSPCA Brighton and, though staff have been doing their level best to raise his spirits and keep him hopeful, the sad reality is that he is losing hope.

“He has really struggled in kennels and can be quite depressed and lonely,” the RSPCA Brighton spokesperson said. “We work hard to keep his spirits up, and he often goes out for day trips with volunteers, playdates with his canine friends and spends lunch breaks in the staff room.”

Casper is unlikely to be up for engaging with visitors in his depressed state and, in truth, he has only a small window of time to do that in.

A study published in the journal Applied Animal Behavior Science in 2014, found that shelter visitors engage with an average of just one dog per visit and that these interactions last as little as eight minutes. That is hardly enough time for a dog feeling down on his luck to come out of his shell, as others have shown.

The team members caring for him at the shelter are doing their very best to boost his mood, though.

In a video posted to the RSPCA Brighton TikTok page, viewers saw how Casper was treated to a playdate with fellow resident Cherry. It was a day out, bouncing around on their leashes, which Casper very much enjoyed.

The only sad part came when it was time to go and Casper remembered where home is for now. It doesn’t have to be his forever home, though.

Having spent time with staff, the people behind the scenes at RSPCA Brighton have a pretty clear idea of what sort of home would suit Casper best.

“He would love a home who are experienced with sight hounds [types of hound dog that hunt primarily by sight and speed] and their quirks and ideally with a female dog who enjoys his company and his enthusiastic play style,” the spokesperson said.

The challenge now is to turn that dream home into a reality.