Man Fosters Shelter Puppy for Just One Week, It's Not Going To Plan: 'Fail'

A heartwarming video showing a young puppy peacefully napping in her foster carer's arms has gone viral on social media, melting hearts among dog lovers.

The Instagram clip, shared on Saturday by 30-year-old Monte from Pensacola, Florida, under the username @dorka_bel, shows the chocolate Labrador puppy, named Pepper, nestled comfortably in his arms. She is napping peacefully like she has known and loved him all her life.

"I'm fostering a shelter pupper for a week. This is not even an hour into meeting her and she's already like this … How am I supposed to give her back?" Monte writes in the caption.

He told Newsweek that 10-week-old Pepper is a shelter puppy from Santa Rosa County Animal Services in Milton, Florida, and she is the most sweet and cuddly girl.

Monte added: "Within the first hour, I felt bonded with her because of how comfortable she felt in my arms. The feeling seemed mutual as she fell asleep like she's known me her whole life. She's super playful and gets along great with my two shepherds that are both retired bomb-sniffing dogs."

While Pepper the puppy immediately won his heart, Monte said why he has ultimately decided not to keep her as his own.

"As much as I would love to adopt her, keeping her would be hard for me to help other dogs in the shelter just like her. She's so sweet and cute with her blue eyes, I don't see her having a problem finding her forever home," he added.

"I do videos and foster shelter dogs, along with doing doggy day-outs with other shelter pups that give dogs a whole day out of the shelter to decompress and just be a dog. The shelter environment is stressful so even just one day out helps.

"As much I love Pepper, it would be hard to continue to do that and help other shelter dogs and puppies get out of the shelter," Monte said.

With almost 3 million dogs in shelter across the country last year alone, fostering and adopting have never been more important.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) said that, of all the dogs in shelter, only 2 million were adopted in 2024; 554,000 were returned to their owner; 524,000 were transferred to other organizations; and 334,000 were euthanized.

The video quickly went viral on social media and has so far received over 5.7 million views and more than 570,000 likes on the platform.

One user, Jmdellio2312, commented: "You failed the best way to fail. She's yours now."

Fearless_fun_living posted: "Fostering puppies is how people end up with 9 dogs."

Imanicat added: "She's made her decision: YOU've been adopted."

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