Dog gets adopted by nursing home after consistently sneaking from shelter to go visit the residents

Home is where the couch is that makes you feel safe enough to sleep peacefully at night. One dog knows about this and uses it as a basis for choosing a home. Scout, who used to reside in a local Michigan animal shelter, decided he didn't have to wait for someone to adopt him and went on to choose his own address. The stray mutt surely took matters into his own paws when he climbed over one big fence, hopped towards the lobby of a nursing home down the road, curled onto a couch and slept on, it repeatedly. When a nurse discovered him the next day, she contacted Antrim County Animal Control, from where he had escaped the night before. The sheriff arrived and returned him to the shelter, reports the Detroit Free Press.

Scout was unknown, and no one knew anything about his past. The shelter staff gave him a new name, but they knew nothing else about him, save that he had the characteristic behavior of a mistreated dog. Someone must have shot him with BBs or birdshot before because his jaw still had scars of round pellets in it.

After a few nights, Scout was found sleeping on the same couch again. He managed to jump across a 10-foot chain-link fence, then a 6-foot solid privacy fence, cross the road and find his couch. He was again taken back to the shelter. However, Scout was predictably back on the couch for the third time just a few nights later.

The Meadow Brook Medical Care Facility personnel had a choice to make. The hospital mostly serves seniors, some of whom have terminal illnesses, dementia, or simply have nowhere else to go or no one to care for them. Scout the dog decided to make his home here for whatever reason. The nursing home’s administrator, Marna Robertson said, "I’m a person who looks at outward signs, and if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be."

Scout was adopted by the nursing home, which now has its own pet, and the residents were overjoyed. He roams the halls of the nursing home, sleeps down wherever he pleases, and pays visits to people whenever the whim strikes him. He learned how to enter their rooms by jumping up and pulling down on door handles with his paw. He also knows which residents put dog treats in their walkers for him.

Scout was honored during a fundraiser held by the nurses. Strangers who heard how he got there donated hundreds of dollars. He was even named Resident of the Month in February. Nobody knows where he came from, what his original name was, or how he became a stray. Nobody knows why he wanted to be here so strongly, but the dog has made the nursing home his permanent home. "He'll always let you pet him and lets you talk to him if you need someone to talk to," said Shirley Sawyer, 82, one of the 20 residents. "It’s very nice."