Bongo the dog's story could have ended in a ditch. Instead, it’s ending with a one-way ticket to Washington.

The blind dog, who survived a brutal wound and months of uncertainty at the overcrowded Pima Animal Care Center, was adopted yesterday by a woman visiting Tucson from Washington state.

She hadn’t planned to take a dog home, but when she saw Bongo, she fell in love.

PACC staff described Bongo’s new owner—an outdoor enthusiast—as a wonderful match, and now the two are on their way north to start a new life together.

“We’re thrilled that sweet Bongo found his family, and we're hoping to find the same happy ending for the many more pets in our care,” said PACC Public Information Officer Kayleigh Murdock.

Bongo’s past is a mystery, but his body told a story of extreme violence. When he was found in January near PACC, his eye sockets were raw and bloody, and he had a deep gash running from the top of his skull to his muzzle.

Some speculated the wound bore the terrifying precision of a knife strike. It moved the whole dog-lovers community in town.

“The nature of his injuries is incredibly unusual,” said Dr. Jen Wilcox, director of veterinary services at PACC. “We don’t know what happened to him. We probably never will.”

State law classifies intentional animal cruelty as a felony under ARS 13-2910, which covers neglect, torture, abandonment, and mutilation. But prosecutions are rare. Many cases go unpunished due to lack of evidence or reluctance to report abuse.

“Bongo’s injuries were extreme,” Wilcox said. “If someone did this to him intentionally, they should be held accountable. But we don’t know who hurt him. We never will.”

Emergency surgery saved Bongo’s life, but his time at the shelter nearly broke him.

The constant barking by nearly 600 other dogs, chaos and stress were too much. He jumped and paced frantically in his kennel, a silent protest against the cage that confined him.

The crisis of special needs dogs

Bongo is one of the lucky ones. Many special needs dogs—blind, deaf, amputated, traumatized—never make it out of shelters alive.

They wait the longest for adopters, and when space runs out, they are often the first to be euthanized.

The numbers are bleak. According to the Best Friends Animal Society, 355,000 shelter animals were euthanized in the U.S. in 2023. Special needs dogs are disproportionately affected.

“People hesitate to adopt dogs with disabilities,” Wilcox said. “They think it will be too much work. But blind dogs, three-legged dogs, deaf dogs—they adapt. They just need someone willing to give them a chance.”

Alaska Mittelette, an animal behavior consultant specializing in dogs with special needs, has seen this firsthand. Her experience with Misty, a partially blind and deaf dog, reshaped her understanding of canine communication.

“I suffer from sensory processing issues, so I could relate to Misty’s world,” she said. “Most deaf and blind dogs tend to get overwhelmed faster by some stimuli. That really shapes their way of interacting with the world.”

Bongo had to relearn the world without sight. At first, every step was hesitant, ears scanning desperately for familiar sounds. But dogs are resilient. Within weeks, he learned to walk confidently on a leash, staying close to his caregiver’s side, listening, mapping out his surroundings.

“Blind dogs live completely normal lives,” Wilcox said. “Once they’re in a stable environment, they thrive.”

For Bongo and many other dogs, the shelter can be overwhelming. While PACC is the largest shelter in Southern Arizona, it was only designed to house around 300 dogs.

It currently holds almost 600, with the noise, stress, and confinement taking a toll.

“For a dog like Bongo, who’s already dealing with so much, the stress is even worse,” Wilcox said.

Overcrowding leads to euthanasia, and while PACC does everything possible to avoid it, the reality is grim: When there’s no space, tough decisions have to be made.

PACC operates as an open-admission shelter, welcoming all animals in need, regardless of their health or situation. Despite the challenges this entails, PACC has maintained a live release rate of over 90% in recent years—a threshold often linked to “no-kill” shelters.

This means that the vast majority of the roughly 17,000 animals it takes in annually find homes or other safe placements.

But not all.

The ones left behind

Bongo is on his way to a new home where he’ll enjoy the safety of a family and the quiet life his new caregiver will provide.

But hundreds of other dogs remain at PACC, waiting.

For special needs dogs, finding the right home can take time. And time is something many shelters don’t have.

Murdock recalled Bongo’s first adoption last month. It didn’t last long—he was returned within days.

“He’s not comfortable around other dogs,” she said. “And that’s okay. Some dogs need to be the only pet.”

Mittelette, who has been dedicating her career to understanding how differently abled dogs navigate their environments, stresses that adopting a dog with disabilities is not harder—it’s just different.

“I’m a professional, yet I was afraid of failing my newly adopted dog,” she said. “But it turned out that you really build a new communication path along the way, like with any other dog. It’s just a different language. It’s not difficult, it’s new from what you know. So you get creative, you reinvent your daily life, you get the help of people who already know, who already speak the language of the dog you just adopted.”

Flo Tomasi is a graduate student in the University of Arizona's bilingual journalism program and a freelance journalist.

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