On the “Adoptable Dogs” section of the Milton Animal Rescue League website, Hubert’s bio reads like a personals ad.
“Hubert is a 3 year old neutered male pit bull terrier. A cuddly and sweet boy, he can get jumpy and mouthy when excited. He needs an experienced adult owner who can guide him and teach him what to do and how to do it. In the process, you will truly get a best friend. And a strikingly handsome best friend at that.”
Of course, there’s more to know about Hubert: He enjoys long walks; sometimes he falls asleep with tennis balls in his mouth. And as of this week, he will have spent almost 450 days in shelter — an extraordinary amount of time, especially given that he’s recently become something of an Internet celebrity.
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Hubert came to the Milton Animal League shelter on Aug. 24, 2013, after somebody found him wandering the street without a collar or ID.
Shelter staff couldn’t find the owners, and tried looking through lost pet reports, calling nearby shelters, or scanning for microchips. Nothing panned out, and Hubert’s long stay in the shelter began.
“We get a lot of dogs, especially pit bull terriers ... that are just let go,” said animal control officer Nancy Bersani. “Once they’re in a kennel setting, it becomes very stressful and some dogs just go stir crazy.”
That’s when, according to volunteer and league secretary Maura Porter, the shelter is forced to euthanize a dog.
“You can’t keep an animal alive when its losing its mind in a small space,” she said. “So far, we’ve been lucky with Hubert. It’s remarkable, he’s spent this long in the shelter and he’s as sweet as pie.”
Staff at the shelter still fear that every day Hubert spends without a home is a risk to his mental health.
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After about eight or nine months, Bersani started to notice more anxious behavior. Then she really started to worry.
“It’s been a long long haul for poor Hubert,” she said. “We started to see his deterioration, and we knew it was not his fault, and we wanted to try every avenue we could to get him a safe home.”
That’s when the shelter began a marketing campaign for the dog. In September, a volunteer at the shelter posted a picture of Hubert on their Facebook page that read, “I have been waiting at the shelter to be adopted for 373 days!”
“That’s what made everything go viral.” Bersani said.
Soon, Hubert got his own Facebook page, “A Home for Hubert.” His story was spread around the Internet, shared on social media, and promoted by news organizations and pit bull rescue groups. His page now has nearly 3,000 “likes.”
“We were getting a lot of inquiries from all over the world,” Bersani said. “We had to refuse them because we won’t ever ship an animal anywhere, and we want people to come and spend time with the animal before adopting.”
International requests came pouring in, even after the shelter made clear it was looking for somebody from Milton.
“We’ve gotten requests from all sorts of Miltons,” Porter said. “Milton, Australia; Milton, Florida, Ontario, Indiana … but none from Milton, Mass.!”
Hubert’s ideal home is one without cats or small children, to avoid any excited jumpiness.
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He can’t be shipped too far, and because of his separation anxiety, he needs someone who can spend long amounts of time with him on training and establishing trust.
That means no busy work schedules, which is a deal breaker for potential caretakers like Alyssa Lacouture, who takes Hubert on little vacations, keeping him for weekends, but just can’t spend the time required to provide a full-time, permanent home for Hubert.
Lacouture works two jobs as a social worker, which keeps her schedule packed six days a week. “He’s such a sweet dog,” she said. “It breaks my heart that I can’t adopt him.”
Lacouture kept Hubert for a two-month span to see if he could get adjusted, but eventually she decided it wasn’t in his best interest. “I was in tears when he came back to the shelter,” she said. “Everybody thinks of pit bulls and thinks of this awful dog, but I have pictures of him right next to me curled up in a ball. He is so affectionate.”
For Porter, the biggest priority is finding Hubert a home — the right home — for the holidays. “I want him to experience some place where he can experience being a real dog,” she said. “The thought of him spending another Christmas in the shelter just breaks my heart, because he deserves better than that.”
Victoria Bedford can be reached at victoria.bedford@globe.com. Follow her on twitter at @tori_bedford
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