When employees of the Humane Society for Hamilton County in Indiana arrived one typical morning, they discovered something that completely stopped them. Before the doors were even unlocked, a two-year-old cat named Jenkins and a six-month-old puppy named Boris were sitting in the parking lot. The person who left them there did not stay long enough to explain why. Boris had gently covered Jenkins with his paw. That was not what he had been trained to do. No one instructed him to. He simply did.
It’s difficult to avoid staring at that picture for a while. Just past the point at which the world is still unfamiliar and perplexing, a puppy instinctively reaches over to protect what little familiarity he still has. Jenkins, however, remained motionless. It’s hard to tell if that was trust or fear. Most likely both.
After the shelter posted about it, the story quickly went viral on social media, and it’s understandable why. Something about the gesture—small, nonverbal, and particular—makes it stand out from a generic tale of animal abandonment. It’s not like a statistic. It seems like a scene from a life that was quietly and abruptly taken apart.
However, less attention is paid to how commonplace this type of circumstance is. Shelters frequently receive bonded pets, which are animals that have shared a home, shared meals, and developed what behaviorists and veterinarians refer to as attachment behaviors. Owners occasionally lose their homes. Sometimes they are unable to pay for medical care. Sometimes the owner passes away and no one takes over, as was the case with Dorotha, a 71-pound dog in North Carolina. Before neighbors could arrange for assistance, Dorotha spent roughly a week wandering her former neighborhood in confusion. She had been cherished. Then she was just free in a world that had abruptly changed.
People don’t realize how important it is that these incidents occur during the summer. As temperatures rose into the upper 80s, the Indiana shelter took care to note that Boris and Jenkins had been abandoned. There is no water, no shade, and no true protection from the elements in parking lots. Veterinarians note that pets can deteriorate in those conditions more quickly than most people anticipate, particularly cats, who regulate heat differently than dogs. The gap between “uncomfortable” and “life-threatening” is actually quite small. Jenkins and Boris were located on time. Not all animals are.
When bonded pairs do eventually find a shelter, there is a certain cruelty involved, even if it is inadvertent. When three Labradoodles were first dumped together in a rural area of Missouri, they were described as scared, huddled, and unsure. At first, at least, they found solace in one another. Recognizing this, shelters work harder to keep bonded animals together, but logistical challenges, adoption deadlines, and space limitations make that extremely challenging. It calls for a particular type of adopter who is willing to accept two animals instead of just one, and those adopters are more difficult to locate.
Boris soon found his forever home. Jenkins took a bit longer. Eventually, the shelter informed their followers that both had been assigned. It’s a satisfying conclusion that merits recognition. However, it’s important to keep in mind that not every bonded couple has a viral post. The majority of them don’t. In kennels and cages, the majority of them wait in silence, sometimes even side by side, in the hopes that the next person to enter will be heading in their direction.
These stories are often consumed as feel-good content, and they can truly be that. Beneath the picture of the paw-over-the-cat, however, lies something more disturbing: the disparity between the amount of protection animals provide for us and their lack of protection when things change. Boris was unaware that he was being left behind. He stayed close because he knew Jenkins was there. It’s a minor issue. It’s also everything, depending on your perspective.
