‘Tender-hearted’ dog found as a stray struggled at shelter. Now, a fresh start
A “tender-hearted” dog struggled at a shelter — then, his luck took a turn for the better.
Banjo the pup — who has a signature “scruffy” appearance — got a heartwarming adoption in North Carolina.
“We are all very excited for him, as he is very well loved already in his new home,” Mady Thielemann, a spokesperson for the Raleigh-area shelter, told McClatchy News in an Oct. 15 email. “He was adopted into a family with a young daughter who loves him already and a 4-year-old doggy sibling named Rocky.”
Banjo kicked off a new chapter after he was picked up as a stray. The “silly” dog became known for bearing a “striking resemblance to a badly taxidermied meerkat,” the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) of Wake County wrote in a Facebook post.
“We call him a werewolf potato because of how scruffy and round he is,” Thielemann wrote. “He is a 9/9 body count score, which means he’s pretty chonky. Basically if a potato was bitten by a werewolf (or a werewolf were bitten by a potato?), Banjo is exactly what we think the resulting creature would look like.”
As the 7-year-old pup went up for adoption, the shelter thought he would benefit from losing weight. Workers also hoped he would be matched with a patient new owner.
“He is a friendly fella that is anxious being here at the shelter,” Thielemann wrote while Banjo spent about two weeks waiting for a home. “He can be kind of stiff and scared, especially when it comes to vetting.”
But when Banjo feels comfortable around people, he “becomes an unintentionally hilarious ball of walking sunshine that makes you laugh without even trying. Banjo may not be polished, but that’s what makes him perfect,” the SPCA wrote.
Then on Oct. 15, the shelter shared the good news that the shy dog was adopted. Now, he’s settling in with his new family.
“They had another dog who was 12 years old who just passed away 2 weeks ago and he looked exactly like Banjo,” Thielemann wrote. “So it was fate!”
This story was originally published October 16, 2025 at 11:29 AM with the headline "‘Tender-hearted’ dog found as a stray struggled at shelter. Now, a fresh start."
