After two years of waiting, Sam has found a home.

Sam’s story with SPCA began when his previous owner decided to move, and left him behind.

Abandoned with no one to care for him, Sam was picked up by the local pound and brought into the SPCA Thames Centre all the way back in July 2020.

With thousands of animals being brought into the care of SPCA each year, many manage to find their forever homes within weeks. There are inevitably some animals who take a lot longer to rehome for a variety of different reasons – but as time stretched on, the team at our Thames Centre were baffled as to why Sam wasn’t being chosen.

“He’s an incredibly loyal dog, and once he bonds with you, you’re his person,” said Thames Centre Manager Lisa.

An extremely friendly and kind-natured dog, Sam charmed many of the team and visitors with his playful personality and adorably wonky ears.

One thing that may have deterred a few potential adopters was Sam’s ability to leap fences – he could jump very high, so any new family would need to ensure they had an especially high fence to prevent him accidentally escaping.

While there was some interest in Sam over his two-year stretch with us, no one on signed on the dotted line, and he became the SPCA’s longest-stay animal so far this year.

With the team desperate to find Sam a loving home, we spread the word of this gorgeous boy as far and wide as possible.

With posts on social media and ads in local newspapers proving unsuccessful, it wasn’t until a recent article on Stuff and the front page of The Waikato Times that Sam’s plight gained greater traction.

Luckily for Sam, his new family-to-be decided to read the paper that day – and couldn’t help but fall in love.

Sam’s new humans couldn’t be more perfect for him. As a retired couple who own a dairy farm, Sam will have all of the space he needs to run, play, and just be a dog!

The owners say they’re active in the garden, and are frequently down at the farm, so will be spending plenty of time enjoying the outdoors with Sam.

They’ve even built a special high-fenced kennel area for Sam to safely play when they’re not there – so they don’t ever need to worry about his high-jumping abilities. With a couch to himself to sleep on at night, we know Sam has found a wonderful loving forever home to live out his days.

Our team at the Thames Centre are thrilled that Sam has now found his forever family, but will still be sad to say goodbye.

“He’s part of the family around here,” Lisa said.

Staff, volunteers, and even retired volunteers got together to throw a celebratory morning tea to farewell Sam.

Here at SPCA, we will stay with animals however long it takes for them to be rehomed. It just takes a little longer for some than others, and Sam is proof of that. We know that every single animal of the thousands we welcome through our doors each year is worthy of a loving home though. We are so thrilled to share Sam’s so deserved, long-overdue happy ending today. We wish this special boy and his lovely new owners all the best for their future together.