Dog saved from death row is so happy, he literally jumps for joy wherever he goes
Have you ever found yourself so excited about something that you couldn’t help but leap with joy? Well, it turns out this reaction to an overwhelming amount of excitement isn’t exclusive to humans alone. There is one rescue dog that’s proof of that.
Meet Tatum, the dog that has been jumping for joy ever since his parents rescued him from death row.
When Tatum first arrived at a Georgia-based animal shelter, no one there thought he could live. The sweet-tempered pup had been starving for quite some time. He only weighed 15 pounds and you could see every bone in his body.
The cinnamon-colored dog was in serious need of saving, as the shelter he found himself in is considered a “high-kill” shelter. Something that poor Tatum discovered for himself when they put him on death row.
Thankfully, that’s when the Pixel’s Posse stepped in to save him.
Pixel’s Posse is a multi-faceted organization focusing on education, advocacy, and rehoming for shelter animals. Part of the Posse is the Pixelfund, which helps save animals’ lives by using donations to pull animals from shelters that have them scheduled for euthanization to rehabilitate them and get them adopted through grassroots networking, adoption events, and social media.
Thankfully, the dedicated volunteers operating under the Pixelfund were able to find Tatum and rescue him just in the nick of time, on the day he was scheduled to die.
After taking him in, the organization used funds to have him neutered, tested for heartworm, and brought current on all his vaccinations and Rabies shots. Then they focused on getting his weight up.
Once he was healthy enough for adoption, the Pixelfund uploaded a picture of him to Facebook with some of his backstory. That’s when Tatum’s mom, Nicole Lever, found his picture and fell 100% in love with the sweet dog.
Nicole and her husband, Charles Lever, adopted the dog sight unseen.
“We were actually surprised at how quickly he took to us. He jumped right in our car when we did the handoff. After being home for like 10 minutes, he just laid right on Nicole’s chest. I think he just didn’t care where he was, he was just ready to do anything, he was up for anything,” Charles Lever recalls in an interview with The Dodo.
Though it was understandable when Tatum jumped for joy on his first freedom walk with his new mom and dad, they soon learned that it wasn’t going to be a one-off occurrence.
The happy-go-lucky pup is still jumping for joy nearly a year after going to his forever home.
At first, Nicole and Charles were a little worried that this might be something they needed to work on. A quick chat with Tatum’s trainer, though, made them realize the best thing they could do for Tatum was to enjoy his happiness.
“We asked our trainer like, ‘What do we do?! He’s jumping – like this is embarrassing, I can’t walk him out like this!’ And he just said, ‘All you can do is laugh.’ So we just embrace it,” Nicole explains.
He doesn’t just leap for mom and dad, either. Tatum has become very close with the neighbor, Greg, after discovering that he always packs dog treats with him on his morning walk to pass out to the jumpy doggo.
Tatum’s hilarious jumps for joy made him so popular that his parents even created him his own Instagram account after so many people begged them to.
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Clearly, Tatum knows how to trend with the best of them!
He isn’t only popular for his joy jumping, the dog has also grown pretty famous for his blunt conversations with his dad, known as Tatum Talks. During these conversations, he’ll get everything off of his chest from worrying that the flying hawks overhead will get him on his walks to telling his dad he ought to be in the harness for once.
All in all, Tatum is just an incredibly sweet, goofy dog that has a whole lotta love to give.
“He’s so much of a lap dog that he doesn’t know his own size. We say if we could open up our chest, he’d crawl right in … he’s just super grateful for everything. He doesn’t have a mean bone in his body. He could hate people. He SHOULD hate people, he really should. If what happened to him happened to a human, they would just be angry forever without forgiveness and that’s a big lesson,” Charles says.
That is an awfully big lesson. One we hope everyone can learn from. If you would like to learn how you can contribute to the program that saved Tatum and so many others from death row, visit The Pixel Fund. To learn more about Tatum’s touching story and how he’s still jumping for joy today, watch the Levers’ video interview with The Dodo below.
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