Hi, I’m Scruffiki, adopted kid to @wife_of_saruni and @gregdutoit

My previous ‘owners’ used to call me Stuart Little, but that’s before Woodrock found out so they called me ‘Scruff’ – I think it’s because of my handsome scruffiness. Anyway, it stuck.

My folks thought of calling my Rafiki, which means ‘friend’ in Swahili but after meeting me, they combined the best of both worlds so now I’m a handsome, scruffy best friend for life! My folks and I became besties over social media!

It’s a pretty cool story and I’m the luckiest #goodboy ever!

A week before this thing called #Covid19Lockdown two hoomans called @CraigHawks and @PetraLaranjo were trying to help other kids like me find foster homes for the 21 days. Ideally, we animal-shelter kids would love a forever home and not have to return to the shelter afterward, but at least for 21 days, we had the opportunity to be #fosterfailures or networked to find homes. We were crossing paws!

You see, the animal shelters, including Woodrock – the amazing one I was chilling at – were going to take strain during these crazy times because the caring people who helped look after us had to go home and no-one would be able to come to meet us to adopt us. It was all a bit stressful.

Petra and Craig popped in, the day before lockdown, to drop off donations. They, their friends and a cool tribe of hoomans at this social impact organization called @JustOneThing365 donated a whack load of food and supplies – for us kids and the hoomans looking after us. (Petzone even donated 48 bags of food to a few animal shelters!!! How cool are they!)

They had a foster failure (hahaha) a few years back but wanted to foster – and especially now so they asked the Body Corporate where they lived if they could sneak in a fourth pupper…they have three rescue dogs even though they’re only allowed two! But, miraculously, they said YES!

And that’s how I got to move in for 21 days. But they were adamant that I was going to find a forever home before the lockdown was over so they created an Instagram account for me! How cool is that!

I smiled my widest smile for my profile photo and they helped me do daily posts – I don’t have opposable thumbs you see.

Guys, 100 people liked my photos and they started following me! I felt like a celebrity but was still nervous about finding a home because I knew that being a foster fail wasn’t going to be an option here.

But I’m an optimist and happy kid so I kept the faith!

By day 14, my mom and dad saw one of my photos and they fell head-over-heels in love 😊

We met on a video call, then sneakily the next day and then…TADA, I moved in the following morning and woke up to our first Family Day together!

So here I am, happy as a scruffadoodle and asking you to give fostering a try. It saves lives, dudes!

If you have any questions, please chat with your local animal shelter and they’ll help.

PS> The SPCA’s don’t have foster programmes.