{"id":273609,"date":"2026-04-30T22:34:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T22:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/273609\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T22:34:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T22:34:07","slug":"animal-shelter-helps-traumatized-pets-find-second-chances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/273609\/","title":{"rendered":"Animal shelter helps traumatized pets find second chances"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) &#8211; For some animals arriving at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/havenacslubbock\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/havenacslubbock\">Haven Animal Care Shelter<\/a>, the first step isn\u2019t always adoption \u2014 it\u2019s recovery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe make sure they are okay, if they need to go to a vet right away we take them,\u201d Brenda Wilbanks, founder of the shelter, said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Wilbanks said animals come in with different stories. Some face physical injuries and others carry emotional trauma.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cSocialize them, and that can be sitting with them and not getting too close, or it could be petting them, letting them sit in your lap, whatever they want to do,\u201d Wilbanks said.<\/p>\n<p>Healing takes time<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Wilbanks said every animal heals at their own pace, and learning to feel safe again doesn\u2019t happen overnight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cSometimes it takes days and weeks for them to adjust and I think that\u2019s the hardest part of this, because it\u2019s hard to explain to people that it takes a while,\u201d Wilbanks said. \u201cThey don\u2019t know where they are and some of them never had a home, some of have been on the street and never had a home and don\u2019t know what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Wilbanks said adopting a formerly abused or neglected animal doesn\u2019t always come with an instant connection, but with patience, it can lead to finding a new pet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe have had people who would come and get a traumatized dog and they would just stay with it for weeks, months and finally that dog would adjust to the home and they would say it\u2019s the best dog they have ever had,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Process of finding new homes<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">To set owners and the animals up for success, the shelter holds a two-week foster period and conducts interviews before finalizing an adoption.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">At Haven Animal Care Shelter, the mission is making sure every animal gets a second chance at finding a home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cNone of this is their fault, I mean the ones who come here, even if they were a behavior problem, they did not do anything to be in a situation like out on a street or something so, definitely they deserve a second chance, and a third if they need it,\u201d Wilbanks said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">From the shelter to your home, she says your new best friend is an adoption away.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThey just love you no matter what, most of the dogs, they love you, they don\u2019t care if you have had a bad day, in fact they really want to help then,\u201d Wilbanks said.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 KCBD. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) &#8211; For some animals arriving at Haven Animal Care Shelter, the first step isn\u2019t always&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[8697,5683,15429,244,101449,4838,46590,49781,15432,13202,8469,16360,4618,168,170,169,101447,16744,101448,21926,13267,2004],"class_list":["post-273609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-abuse","tag-adoption","tag-animal","tag-animals","tag-brenda","tag-care","tag-chance","tag-haven","tag-heal","tag-healing","tag-help","tag-hurt","tag-jayden","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news","tag-negelct","tag-recovery","tag-rehabilitate","tag-second","tag-shelter","tag-wilbanks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}