If your dogs are anything like mine, they have no problem unmaking a bed by kicking away pillows and pulling off sheets and blankets.
But a ridiculously cute, wigglebutt, 1-year-old Pit Bull named Rush can do just the opposite: as more than 860,000 YouTube viewers have witnessed, Rush can make his own bed.
Thanks to that video, uploaded two weeks ago by the SICSA (Society for the Improvement of Conditions for Stray Animals) Pet Adoption Center of Kettering, Ohio, the very talented Rush now has a very loving forever home.
“The family had seen the video, came and met Rush, and fell in love,” Nora Vondrell, the shelter’s executive director, told ABC News.
The timing couldn’t be better — October is National Pit Bull Awareness Month.
“There are a lot of negative stereotypes about the American Pit Bull,” Vondrell said. “If we were able to highlight the cute, cuddly points of Rush, then we can help people look beyond the Pit Bull label.”
After Rush was brought to SICSA by animal control earlier this year, he was adopted, but he was returned to the shelter in September because he was too rambunctious for the family.
“They weren’t just casting Rush away,” Vondrell told ABC News. “They really did try some things, but it wasn’t a good fit for their family. He is a high-energy dog that really wants to be with you, but he likes to play and run.”
SICSA trained Rush to improve his behavior — but he figured out how to make his bed on his own.
“Day after day, the staff would watch Rush make his bed, and one day, one of our marketing interns got it on video,” Vondrell told ABC News. “We put it on social media to encourage people to come in and adopt the animal.”
It worked. Rush was adopted by Angie and Ronnie Wallace, a local couple who said in a SICSA video they knew it was meant to be when, on their way to the shelter, they saw a Cincinnati Bengals billboard with the words “Rush to be there.”
The couple told WKEF they get asked a lot if Rush still makes his bed.
“He will drag around a blanket, but he slept in our bed the first two days,” Angie Wallace said.
Vondrell told ABC News the shelter hopes to get the message out that although some people may think shelter dogs are misbehaved or have diseases, in reality they are wonderful and healthy.
“What we are asking is for you to visit your local animal shelter,” Vondrell said. “See if there’s an animal that you can love and find a forever home.
“There are lots of Rushes out there.”
Here’s the video that led to Rush’s adoption. Enjoy!
Photos via Facebook