In Jackson, TN, you can thank veterinary tech Stephanie Fryns for saving one of the most special pooches of our time. Thanks to her, a bulldog-mix is still alive after his previous owner discarded him for "being gay." Because Stephanie is awesome, she named her rescued dog Elton.
The story is actually pretty poignant:
The dog was left with a rabies control shelter in Jackson, Tenn., this week “not because he’s mean or tears things up… But because his owner says he’s gay!” the group Jackson TN Euthanasia, which tries to find homes for dogs in kill-shelters, posted on its Facebook page on Wednesday.
“He hunched another male dog so his owner threw him away because he refuses to have a ‘gay’ dog!” the group wrote in a post that went viral, leading to thousands of comments online and hundreds of people calling the shelter.
One of those callers was Stephanie Fryns, a veterinary tech from Jackson, who rescued the bulldog-mix. She named him Elton.
Fryns, who owns four dogs, told ABCNews.com that she saw Elton on an adoption website and had made plans to rescue him even before his story went viral.
Fryns said the pooch weighed 50 pounds, and “was pretty friendly so far. He’s pretty scared of everything, which is understandable. But he loved the car ride.”
I remember being called gay as a child because I hunched my friends sometimes. Not fair! Innocent behavior. Still is for me.
In case you're wondering, the somewhat traumatized pup is doing OK, though he's a little frazzled.
Elton, she said, had some redness on his ears but it was impossible to say if they were bites from other fighting dogs. She doubted he had been fought routinely because he was “submissive.”
Homosexual behavior has been recorded in more than 1,000 different animal species, but it is likely that Elton was simply displaying typical dominance behavior when mounting another male dog, rather than being gay.
Dominate another dog, get called gay. I feel like I'm in gym class again. If a movie comes of this story, I demand a sequel called Elton the Gay Dog 2: The Bitch is Back.
Congrats to Elton and his amazing new owner!
