Prince arrived at Animal Care Centers of NYC as a cream-colored cocker spaniel who became anxious at adoption events and guarded the things he valued. A first-time foster home, professional support and a Connecticut family with another spaniel eventually gave him a path to adoption. Best Friends Animal Society reported the story on April 13, 2016.
Prince’s story began with uncertainty
The dog at the center of this account was not introduced as an easy, instantly social adoption prospect. Prince had been surrendered to Animal Care Centers of NYC. When Best Friends staff met him, he showed anxiety during adoption events, the public setting where potential adopters were expected to meet him.
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The story also describes behavior that required close attention in a home. Prince guarded toys and food, protected his space around strangers and did not always give clear signals about whether he was comfortable. Those details matter because they explain why a direct move from a shelter into an unfamiliar household was not treated casually. They also explain why the people helping him concentrated on observation, routine and a plan rather than on forcing quick interactions.
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Nothing in the 2016 account identifies a single cause for Prince’s behavior, and it does not present him as representative of cocker spaniels or of surrendered dogs generally. It is a narrative about one dog whose needs became clearer as he moved through foster care and adoption.
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Why fostering became the next step
A first foster home for a difficult transition
Sascha and Dave were first-time fosterers when they agreed to help Prince. Their role was not simply to provide a temporary address. They had to notice what happened around food, toys, personal space and unfamiliar people, then share useful observations with the professionals supporting his placement.
Dave captured the household’s way of talking about the dog when he said, “We referred to him as ‘the scrappy prince.’” The nickname acknowledges that Prince could be challenging while still presenting him as an individual with a personality, not as a list of problems.
Support from a veterinarian and trainer
Sascha and Dave worked with Prince’s veterinarian and a trainer. Sascha specifically described receiving support from Best Friends that included veterinary guidance and an in-home trainer. Having those professionals involved allowed the fosterers to build routines and protocols around what they were seeing in their own home.
The account does not publish a formal training program, a timetable or a claim that one technique would work for every dog who guards resources. Instead, it shows a practical partnership: the foster family supplied day-to-day information, while the veterinarian and trainer helped them decide how to respond safely and consistently.
Managing the items Prince guarded
One part of the routine was to keep likely guarding items out of Prince’s space. The story mentions toys and food, and says that keeping such valued objects away from his immediate area became part of the foster family’s protocol. In the context of this individual placement, management reduced opportunities for conflict while the adults learned more about his behavior.
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This is not presented as universal behavior advice. A dog that guards food, toys or a resting place can create a safety issue, and the right response depends on the dog, the household and professional assessment. The useful point from Prince’s story is that the fosterers did not improvise alone: they adjusted the environment with guidance from the people responsible for his veterinary and training care.
Fostering also followed a period of grief
Sascha and Dave had lost their own dog, Towser. Sascha explained that they began volunteering and fostering while grieving, but were not ready to adopt another dog immediately. “We knew we needed some time,” she said of that period.
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1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesThat distinction shaped their decision. Fostering gave them a way to help a dog without pretending that the loss of Towser had not happened or making a permanent commitment before they were ready. Their experience also illustrates that a foster home can be formed by people who are still processing a previous loss. The arrangement requires honesty about emotional capacity, household routines and the kind of support a particular dog may need.
For Prince, the result was a temporary home where adults could study his habits outside the shelter setting. For Sascha and Dave, it was a carefully bounded way to return to animal welfare work. The story treats both sides of that arrangement as important rather than portraying fostering as a simple substitute for adoption.
How Charles and Diana entered Prince’s story
A home that already included Princess
Prince’s eventual adopters were Charles and Diana, a Connecticut couple who already had a 10-year-old springer spaniel named Princess. Their household therefore involved more than matching one dog with two people. It also meant considering how Prince would fit into a home with an older resident dog.
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The account does not provide a test score, a prescribed introduction method or a guarantee about how the two dogs would behave together. It records the family’s decision and the life they later shared, including regular hikes with both dogs. Those details establish the setting without turning one successful placement into a promise about every multi-dog adoption.
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Best Friends’ New York foster and adoption coordinator Kristan McCormick remembered seeing Charles in a T-shirt that read “Spaniel Dad.” She said, “And Charles had a T-shirt on that said ‘Spaniel Dad’ and I knew right then that Prince was going home with them.”
Diana recalled the family’s own certainty: “We knew, unless something unforeseen happened, that we were taking him home that day.” The two recollections describe the same adoption from different viewpoints. McCormick saw a sign of an apparent connection; Diana described a decision the couple had reached while meeting Prince.
The wording “unless something unforeseen happened” is significant. It leaves room for responsible adoption judgment rather than treating enthusiasm as a guarantee. A family can feel an immediate bond and still need to consider practical conditions, existing pets and the dog’s known behavior before completing a placement.
Prince’s Connecticut life
After adoption, Prince lived in Connecticut with Charles, Diana and Princess. The family regularly hiked with the dogs. In the story, those hikes function as a simple picture of the life Prince entered: a household with an established canine companion and outdoor routines shared by the family.
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The article does not provide a later medical record, a behavioral assessment, a precise adoption date or a long-term progress report. It does not say that guarding disappeared, that anxiety was cured or that every transition was effortless. What it does report is that Prince moved from surrender and foster care into a permanent home that included another spaniel and regular activity.
That limited outcome is still meaningful. Adoption stories often focus on the instant a dog leaves a shelter, but Prince’s account emphasizes the chain of decisions before that moment: recognizing anxiety, placing him with prepared fosterers, consulting a veterinarian and trainer, managing the home environment, and finding adopters who understood the commitment they were making.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What this account shows about foster-to-adopt work
Behavior is easier to understand in context
Prince’s anxiety was observed at adoption events, while his guarding behavior became part of the foster home’s daily experience. Those are different contexts. A dog may communicate differently in a crowded public setting than in a quiet home, and the people making placement decisions need information from both. The story’s progression from shelter to foster home supplied that broader view.
Management can be part of responsible care
The fosterers’ protocol around toys and food was a management decision for Prince’s particular circumstances. It reduced access to objects he was likely to guard while the adults followed professional guidance. Management is not the same as claiming that a behavior has been permanently changed, and the article does not claim that it was.
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Sascha and Dave were new to fostering, yet they were not left to solve every problem independently. Best Friends connected them with a veterinarian and an in-home trainer. That support made it possible to create routines suited to Prince rather than relying on generic expectations about how a recently surrendered dog should act.
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Adoption is a household decision
Charles and Diana’s home already included Princess, so the match involved the welfare and routine of an older dog as well as Prince’s needs. The narrative does not provide a formula for introducing dogs, but it does make clear that resident pets belong in the decision. A successful adoption has to fit the whole household, not only the person who feels an immediate connection.
What the 2016 story does not establish
- It is not a statistical study of resource guarding, anxiety or cocker spaniels.
- It does not identify why Prince was surrendered or provide a complete history before he reached Animal Care Centers of NYC.
- It does not publish a standardized training protocol, medication plan, behavior measurements or a schedule for improvement.
- It does not claim that removing toys or food from a dog’s space is appropriate for every household.
- It does not verify current shelter, foster or adoption-service availability; the events and quotations belong to Best Friends Animal Society’s report published April 13, 2016.
Those limits do not weaken the narrative. They define what can responsibly be learned from it. Prince’s placement is evidence of one foster-to-adoption journey, not proof that a particular intervention will produce the same result for another dog.
Why Prince’s “castle” is more than a happy ending
The title’s castle is a Connecticut home, but the route to it was built from ordinary, demanding decisions. Prince first needed people to recognize that anxiety at adoption events and guarding in a home were signals requiring care. Sascha and Dave then provided a foster setting while grieving Towser, accepted help from a veterinarian and an in-home trainer, and followed routines designed around the dog in front of them.
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Charles and Diana supplied the permanent household, with Princess already part of the family and hiking as a regular activity. Their quotations show confidence tempered by the possibility that an unforeseen problem could change the decision. That combination—affection alongside practical judgment—is what makes the adoption credible within the account.
Best Friends’ 2016 story therefore leaves readers with a specific picture: a scrappy cream-colored cocker spaniel moved from surrender, through supported foster care, into a Connecticut family prepared to include him in its life. It is a story about patience, observation and matching a dog’s needs with a home’s capacity, not a general recipe for handling every anxious or guarding dog.
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