NOT-SO-TALL TAILS

Three of the sweetest doggo adoption stories you ever did read

- DANA MCMAHAN

The Airstream-Loving Pit Bull Who's Making a Difference

Elli Frank gets a lot of requests to take in dogs. The experiential marketing pro based in Germantown, New York, first realized just how many pups needed homes when she adopted Mr. Bones, a pit bull, in 2012. When they met, he was severely malnourished, was covered in scars and what looked like cigarette burns, had a mouth full of shattered teeth, and was closing in on his scheduled euthanasia. She remembers thinking, I can't change everything on the evening news, but I can change this. That aha moment moved her to launch Mr. Bones & Co. (@mrbonesandco), an animal welfare nonprofit specializing in the rescue, rehabilitation, and adoption of dogs facing extraordinary challenges. Over the years, she's helped dozens of pups find their furever homes-and kept some for herself.

After six years as her near-constant companion, Mr. Bones passed away. "I just kind of shut down," Elli says. The next month, a colleague who volunteered at a shelter in the Bahamas asked Elli to take a dog who'd been found at a local dump. "I looked at a picture of this emaciated red-and-white pit bull who reminded me too much of Mr. Bones, and I was just like, 'No, I can't." The dog was "passed over time and again because of his looks and breed," Elli says, "until a mighty storm literally washed him up to me."

In the fall of 2019, Elli went to Florida to help out after Hurricane Dorian and drove home with a ragtag group of dogs to be fostered. She didn't recognize him from the photo, but her colleague soon told her that the gentle, scrappy pup among them, named Joey, was the dog she'd said no to.