There are moments in life that can’t be explained, when you find yourself at the right place at the right time and the pieces just fall together in a way you couldn’t have imagined. For Terrie and Boe Bland, it was as simple as viewing a Facebook reel of a special pup posted by someone nearly 1,000 miles away from their home in Utah.
Local Pampa resident Pam Martin took in a five-month-old pup who was born with a disability that would make it difficult for anyone who hasn’t dealt with this particular issue to take care of. It didn’t take long for the pup, who Pam named Utah, to learn simple visual commands, and with his sweet and mild-mannered disposition, she posted him on Facebook to potentially find him a forever home.
“A lady reached out to me a couple of weeks ago and said she couldn’t handle a pup who had been born deaf. I told her I would take him, so I picked him up and brought him to my house as a foster. I posted him on social media and a couple of days later I got a random message from someone I didn’t know and he told me he was interested in the dog. So I did some digging and gave him my phone number. He called me and said he and his wife live in Utah, and they didn’t care how far it was, that if he qualified, he and his family would love to adopt the dog. I did a bunch of research, called his vet, had him give me references, and everything checked out great. Come to find out, they had an eight and a half year old Border Collie that was deaf and had passed away two years ago from cancer. I asked, ‘how did you find me?’ He said it was just the strangest thing, my reel randomly showed up on their timeline. That’s just the power of social media. There are so many bad things out there on social media, but at times it can be such a good thing and this is one of those good things to come out of it. I think he’s going to the best home, it just brings tears to my eyes.”
Terrie and Boe hopped on a plane to travel nearly 1,000 miles for a pup they had only seen on a Facebook reel, but it was an opportunity that presented itself during a time when they weren’t having much luck finding a pup that a foster or a shelter was willing to part with.
“We applied for a couple of others, but they were further away, and we’ve found that a lot of people don’t like to foster out of state,” Terrie said. “But this one popped up on our Facebook and we got some more information on him after talking with Pam, and here we are! He is everything we expected and more.”
“Of all the dogs we looked at, we said the right one would come along and this one just fell into place. He’s absolutely beautiful,” Boe said. “People think that deaf dogs are a hinderance, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. You have to learn how to train them differently and you have to have patience more than anything.”
As a witness to the moment of unification between the pup and his new owners, it was as if Utah already belonged to Terrie and Boe, like they were just coming back from a vacation and he was excited to see them again. He ran to them, tail wagging, and happy. When I tried to get a picture of the three of them, Utah insisted on giving Terrie a big smooch for the camera.
To add an even more strange and wonderful coincidence to the story, Utah was born on January 27th, which just happens to fall between Terrie and Boe’s birthdays with just a few days in between.
We’re excited for Terrie, Boe, and Utah, and we hope that they will get to spend many happy years together!
There are plenty of dogs and cats at PAWS who are looking for their forever home and family, so be sure to head up to the shelter, located at 811 S. Hobart, Monday through Friday from 12 PM to 6 PM, and Saturday and Sunday from 3 PM to 5 PM.
