Some pet owners get a kick from dressing their mellow-tempered puppers in ‘Chuckie’ garb for Halloween, but in everyday life, when dogs aren’t treated with care and socialized properly, the behavior that ensues can be, let’s just say, a little ornery—no costume required.
And that was exactly the case for Prancer, whose cheerful name belied a four-legged “demon” dog his frazzled foster mom feared was never going to find his furever home.
“Ok, I’ve tried. I’ve tried for the last several months to post this dog for adoption and make him sound…palatable. The problem is, he’s just not,” Tyfanee Fortuna’s now-viral Facebook post began.
In addition to her belief that rather than a dog, Prancer was “a vessel for a traumatized Victorian child that now haunts our home,” Fortuna ruefully admitted, “There’s not a very big market for neurotic, man-hating, animal-hating, children-hating dogs that look like gremlins.
“But I have to believe there’s someone out there for Prancer, because I am tired and so is my family. Every day we live in the grips of the demonic Chihuahua hellscape he has created.”
Placing the ill-tempered pup was beginning to seem a near-impossible task, but love and social media work in mysterious ways. When Ariel Davis read the hilariously blunt profile description Fortuna had posted for the itsy-bitsy Beelzepup, it seemed as if her life had come full circle.
Several years earlier, Davis had been forced by circumstance to surrender Doodle, a Chi/Jack Russel terrier mix she’d raised from a puppy that was eerily similar in personality to Prancer.
“He had a lot of the same qualities as Prancer,” she told TODAY. “He was a little neurotic and he barked a lot and he didn’t work well with other people and other animals. I spent a lot of time working with him and understanding his personality and learning about myself through him.”
With her life back on track after rehab, Davis felt she was ready to take on the commitment of dog ownership again, and she was pretty certain Prancer was her doggy soulmate.
“Reading about Prancer brought back intense memories of the dog I still love so much,” Davis wrote on her email application to Prancer’s sponsor, The Second Chance Adoption League. “They were very similar in demeanor… I am not looking to replace Doodle, but I am looking for a companion that I can take proper care of and give a loving home.”
Davis, who is single, has a female housemate, works at a women’s rehab center, and has no other pets seemed like Prancer’s perfect match. Their first meeting confirmed it.
“I got there and we just connected,” Davis told TODAY. “Prancer took pretty well to me. Eventually, I took [him] for a walk and he wasn’t nipping at me or biting at my heels. We just got along. With my story and the fact that I didn’t come off as incredibly crazy just kind of meshed and everything seemed to go well. He went home with me that day. He was a perfect little gentleman in the car.”
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Perfect gentleman or demon may be in the eye of the beholder, but one thing’s for sure: Prancer’s a lucky dog that’s going to be loved for the rest of his life.
And Fortuna, whose snarky adoption strategy won the Internet couldn’t be more pleased. “Time flies when you’re having fun. Time also flies when the Chihuahua who held your family hostage for 6 months finally gets adopted. Prancer is almost a distant nightmare to me now, even though he was adopted just over a week ago. His adoption day was one of the best days of my life,” she posted.
“On the flip side, I couldn’t help but feel a bit wrong….it was like expelling myself of a demon and passing it on to someone else. I justify it by knowing it was a consensual exchange, and I couldn’t have made the terms and conditions anymore clear. It also helps that his new victim is madly in love with him (or she has Stockholm syndrome already.)”
P.S. If you’re on Instagram and you want to follow Prancer’s adventures, you likely won’t regret it.
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