In March 2017, a family who had lost their terrier dog and had reached out to the community to find their missing dog, went to Astara in response to a call that claimed their dog was seen in that neighbourhood. It turned out that it wasn’t their dog but since the dog had no owner, they brought him to the shelter and named him Hoppy. Hoppy was a long-legged terrier and a very kind and gentle boy.
In June of that year a family from Tehran adopted Hoppy and he lived with them for 3 years. But the family’s situation changed, and everyone had to leave home for work. Hoppy had separation anxiety and due to his behaviour in response to the anxiety he was not able to stay at their place any longer. He was brought back to the shelter.
Sometime later, we introduced him to a Persian family living in the States, who were looking to adopt a third dog. They liked him and wanted to adopt him, but it was during the pandemic times and the number of flights to the States were extremely limited. A few times we found passengers who would be able to take him to the States but for different reasons each time something prevented Hoppy from travelling. Hoppy stayed in the shelter for another 9 months, until finally in June 2021 a kind passenger took him to the states with his flight ticket. In regard to how they ended up adopting Hoppy, Samira says:
“Our first dog is 13 years old and can’t see properly due to Cataracts, so it is hard for him to play with our 6-year-old dog. We were looking for a dog around 6 years old so they can play together. We looked at the shelters in our area but didn’t fall in love with any of the dogs here. That’s when we decided to adopt a dog from Vafa Shelter so at least we could provide a great life and a warm home for one of its residents. After hearing Hoppy’s life story and watching his photos and videos I fell in love with him. Even though my husband was a bit hesitant about adopting a dog from another country and bringing him all the way here, Hoppy is now the most attached to him out of all of us. My husband says we got lucky with Hoppy’s great temperament. We never expected a 6-year-old dog who was coming from a shelter in Iran to be such a kind, loving and smart dog! Even all our American neighbours love him now and they ask him to “Beshin!” (meaning ‘Sit’ in Farsi).”
