A shelter dog is spending this Christmas week scared and confused in a place far removed from wherever he may have once called home, but it could have been much worse.
Just a few days before Christmas, Blue was abandoned by the people he trusted most. Giana Sabatino, a shelter worker at Providence Animal Center in Pennsylvania, said in a TikTok video he was found "on the side of the road left in a crate" not far from the facility.
In truth, things could have worked out significantly worse for Blue had he not been found. "An old couple was driving and saw Blue in the crate," Sabatino said. "They stopped and pulled over to the side of the road where Blue was and decided to get him into their car to bring him to our shelter to check for a chip."
In the clip posted to Sabatino's TikTok account, giana_sabatino, she explained Blue's plight. The shelter's staff doesn't know anything about the circumstances that led to him being abandoned in such a callous manner.
"When we checked, he had a chip, but unfortunately [we] couldn't get a hold of the person on his microchip," Sabatino said.
What the staff does know is that Blue is struggling with life in the shelter. As Sabatino says in the video, he is "drooling and shaking a lot due to being very scared right now."
That kind of reaction, while heartbreaking, is not entirely uncommon for dogs that are not used to the intense atmosphere of a shelter environment. A 2006 study published in the journal Physiology Behavior found dogs entering the shelter system had three times the level of the stress hormone cortisol in their system than dogs living in standard households.
Blue has only just arrived at Providence Animal Center, and all signs indicate he's feeling stressed in his new environment.
"The shelter is really scary for him at the moment with all these new smells, people and loud noises," Sabatino said. "We are gonna try our best to make Blue as comfortable as possible while in our care."
The dog didn't get any presents this Christmas, even though it's common for U.S. pet owners to spend considerable amounts on gifts for their pets during the holidays. A survey of 1,000 U.S. pet owners conducted by OnePoll for USA Today Blueprint found 15 percent planned to spend $51 to $75 on gifts for their pets.
A further 11 percent said they'd spend $126 to $150, and 7 percent said they'd spend $201 to $500. Six percent of respondents said they would spend more than $1,000 on pet gifts.
After spending Christmas at the shelter, Blue is likely to remain there as we head into the new year. Here's hoping he'll see a better end to 2025.
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