“Why Doesn't Anybody Want Me?” Heart-Rending Photo of Homeless Pit Bull Helps Find Pup Family After 5 Years in Shelters

An incredibly sweet 8-year-old pit bull mix named Chester who has spent the last five years in shelters was adopted after a Long Island animal group posted a picture of him holding a sign that read, "Why doesn't anyone want me?"

The heart-rending photo shows Chester looking down at the sign with his big brown eyes, one white-tipped paw resting over the cardboard.

"Everyone at the shelter tells me what a good boy I am. So why has no one adopted me?" the sign reads. "I promise to be good and love my new family. Please maybe you are my new family. I sit and wait for you to come."

Hundreds of calls from around the world came in from people inquiring about adopting Chester. Last week, a family from Ronkonkoma came to take him home. According to the North Fork Animal Welfare League/Riverhead Animal Shelter Facebook page, Chester went home with his new family Friday. They bought him a new bed and said he loved it.

chester family
North Fork Animal Welfare League/Riverhead Animal Shelter Facebook page
Here is Chester with his new family.

Virtual Facebook hearts swelled over Chester's adoption. Between "likes" and likes of those likes, some users posted that they were moved to tears by his story.

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Chester was plucked off the streets of New York -- a stray -- five years ago and sent to the Riverhead Animal Shelter. He lived there for quite some time before moving to the North Fork Animal Welfare League's Southold location, where he spent the last few months, reports the website Southold Local.

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The manager of the North Fork organization, Gabby Stroup, launched a Facebook page dedicated to finding Chester a home Wednesday -- with that heart-wrenching photo -- and calls and emails came in from as far away as Australia and Nova Scotia, the website said. Stroup got a call from a woman named Dana Dor, who said a friend of hers in Michigan had shared Chester's photo on her Facebook page, and Dor, her husband and two sons went to visit the pup at the shelter the next day.

Chester met the family with kisses and went home with them that day, according to Southold Local.

The Dor family lost two Yorkies five years ago -- the same length of time Chester has been in shelters.

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"We think he was waiting for us," Dor told Southold Local. She said her husband, Adi Dor, had tears in his eyes the first time he met the pup.

"We saw him and we felt connected," Adi Dor told Southold Local. "It was meant to be."

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