Shelter’s longest resident Maximus is off to a foster home and a family of his own

Well, dog gone ... finally, after 854 days.

Maximus is a muscular high-energy mix-breed who always needed somewhere to go, to burn off a day’s worth of unbridled enthusiasm, before cuddling on the couch with an attentive human.

He found attentive humans at the PAWS shelter in Columbus, but he never found a home. Five adoptions failed. PAWS learned one had gone awry when a passerby found Max wandering along a highway.

So he came back to the shelter, and became its longest resident, cumulatively, between adoptions gone wrong.

Now his time is up.

He left Friday for Illinois, to K9s4U, an organization that fosters pets to homes instead of sheltering them. It gathered about 40 in the Columbus area for the transport, said Lindsay Ellis of PAWS outreach.

“He’ll go straight to a family, until he’s adopted,” Ellis said.

Believing Max never again will live in a shelter, PAWS held a going-away party for him Friday, serving snacks and cake and drinks, as Max roamed the room greeting his guests, his tail whipping as he reveled in all the attention, with a couch to wallow on while children rubbed his belly.

Never one to fixate on a ball, Frisbee or chew toy, Max most wants company, and activity.

He loved to go downtown with PAWS volunteer David Stricker, to Broadway and the riverwalk, and meet people. He was good with little kids, who can make some dogs skittish.

“He’s amazing with kids, as you saw, like he is unreal with family,” Ellis said Friday, as kids lavished Max with affection. “Our volunteer dog trainers, and David, David Stricker – David sometimes takes him home on the weekends – they have spent so much time with him, and energy on him, and trained him into this fabulous dog.”

Max was good with other dogs, too. When PAWS needed a companion animal for a feral dog it captured and named Ghost, it recruited Max to help tame him. Max became the therapy dog who taught Ghost to relax around people.

Ghost since has been adopted.

Along with all the training and social skills Max got over the months at PAWS, he learned to relax more, too. Take him for a run or a long walk downtown, and he’s ready for a long nap.

“He’s excited, then very lazy,” said Stricker, Max’s mentor on weekend outings. “He burns his energy very fast. Usually he’ll walk around the downtown, Uptown area, around the riverwalk, and then by the time we get back to the Broadway area, and have a slice of pizza, he’s pretty much done, and wants to get back in the car and go to sleep.”

Max is sociable, when he’s out on the town, but he doesn’t go charging at people. “He’s usually happy to see them. He’s generally just happy to be out. He’s very friendly with everybody,” Stricker said.

Give Max a place to play and a human to huddle up with at the end of the day, and he’s good to go.

And that’s good, because now he’s gone, finally, to find a home.

“He just wants a couch to lie on and a family to love,” said Ellis, “and he will be in heaven.”

This story was originally published April 29, 2018 at 2:50 PM with the headline "Shelter’s longest resident Maximus is off to a foster home and a family of his own."