Ludo was found chained in a crate on a New York City rooftop in April 2025. After emergency veterinary care, weeks of shelter care and a foster placement, she was adopted by Greta H. and Shan, who now take her running, hiking and swimming. Her story was told by the ASPCA in a first-party article published December 30, 2025, and the details below are as that account reports them.
How the rescue started
In early April 2025, the New York Police Department received a 911 call about a dog abandoned on a rooftop. According to the ASPCA, Ludo was inside a crate that had been chained and padlocked to an air-conditioning unit, and she had reportedly been there for several days. The article does not say who left her there, and it does not report an investigation outcome or any legal case, so those questions remain unanswered in the public account.
NYPD got Ludo out of the crate and took her to BluePearl Pet Hospital, which the ASPCA describes as an emergency veterinary hospital and an ASPCA partner. The ASPCA says she was in good health despite what she had gone through.
From emergency care to the adoption
The sequence of care, as the ASPCA lays it out, ran roughly like this:
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| Stage | Where | What the ASPCA reports |
|---|---|---|
| Rescue | Rooftop, New York City (early April 2025) | NYPD responds to a 911 call and removes Ludo from the chained crate. |
| Emergency care | BluePearl Pet Hospital | Initial veterinary assessment after removal. |
| Shelter care | ASPCA Adoption Center (the day after the hospital visit) | ASPCA continues her care and updates her vaccines. |
| Foster placement | A foster home, about two weeks into ASPCA care | Staff can learn more about her personality in a calmer environment. |
| Adoption | Washington Square Park event, then a meeting arranged online | Greta H. and Shan take her home the day they meet her. |
The foster stage is the part of the story that stands out. Moving a dog from a shelter into a home lets staff see how she behaves away from the noise and routine of a shelter. Here, that step gave the ASPCA a fuller picture of Ludo before she was matched with a family.
Finding her
Greta heard about an ASPCA adoption event in Washington Square Park. The couple did not find a match at the event. Afterward, they looked at Ludo’s online profile and decided to meet her. Greta says the meeting quickly won them over, and she brought Ludo home that day.
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What Ludo was like at home
Greta says Ludo already knew “sit” and “paw” and was housebroken when they adopted her. The couple later taught her “down” and “roll over.” These are the adopters’ own recollections, reported by the ASPCA. The article does not describe a formal training or behavior assessment, and Greta is not presented as a trainer or expert.
The family describes Ludo as affectionate and athletic. Their account covers walks and exploring neighborhood parks, runs, hikes upstate and swimming in lakes. Greta says Ludo runs for miles and that the couple’s own activity increased after they adopted her. In her words:
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The tick episode after an upstate hike
The article names ticks as the family’s main challenge. After an upstate hike, Greta says the couple spent the next 24 hours removing more than 20 ticks from Ludo and from themselves. She put it this way: “We spent the next 24 hours pulling off more than 20 ticks from her and us.”
This is one family’s reported experience on one outing. It is not a count of ticks per hike, and it is not a measure of tick risk in any area. The ASPCA article gives no tick prevention advice, so readers who hike with dogs in tick country will need guidance from their veterinarian on prevention and on checking and removing ticks safely.
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What the story does and does not establish
- It establishes the basic timeline of rescue, veterinary care, shelter care, foster placement and adoption, as the ASPCA reports it.
- It describes Ludo as about three years old at the time of the December 2025 story. It does not give a birth date.
- It does not identify the person who abandoned her, report an investigation or describe any legal outcome.
- It contains no population-level statistics about abandoned dogs, rooftop cases, or tick exposure.
- Its training and behavior details come from the adopters, not from an independent assessment.
For readers who want to follow Ludo’s story in the ASPCA’s own words, the original article is at ASPCA, “From Abandoned on a Rooftop to Hiking Upstate: Ludo’s Journey to a Better Life”, published December 30, 2025.
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