“Before the hat, most people would give us dirty looks …”
Bonnie was rescued from a local shelter by Grandma Betty’s Animal Rescue only five minutes before she was going to be put down. Something in her big brown eyes told them she was the sweetest dog ever and just needed a chance to show it, and they were absolutely right.
Not long after Bonnie was rescued, Lili Follett stepped up to foster her and quickly fell madly in love with the adorable pittie.
“She is the sweetest, most loyal dog I’ve ever met,” Follett told The Dodo. “She loves meeting new people and is so trusting. She will immediately plop her head on your lap … She would follow me around my apartment like a little duckling — never more than a few feet away from me no matter what I was doing! She would also wait for me to wake up every morning and walk over to me to get her morning pets. If I didn’t pet her long enough, she would get even closer to me until I gave her enough love!”
Follett knew that any family would be so lucky to adopt Bonnie, and set about trying to find the perfect match for her, but was unfortunately met with a lot of fear and misunderstanding.
“Before the hat, most people would give us dirty looks and purposely step off the sidewalk to walk around us, versus just walking past us,” Follett said. “Most people were visibly nervous or unsettled when they saw her. Seeing people’s reactions to her made me realize that she would never get adopted without a drastic change.”
Bonnie is the sweetest dog around, but unfortunately, a lot of people just couldn’t see that — so Follett came up with an idea.
To make Bonnie more approachable and ease people’s misplaced fears, Follett bought her a propeller hat. After all, who could possibly be scared of a dog in a propeller hat? Bonnie loved wearing the hat, so Follett started taking her out in it, and the change in people’s reactions to her was almost immediate.
“When people see Bonnie with the hat, they smile, laugh and definitely try to interact with her much more,” Follett said. “We’ve had cars slow down to yell about how cute she is out of their windows almost every time I take her out for a walk. Parents are more willing to let their kids play with Bonnie. Significantly more people would stop us and ask to pet her, which allowed me to open up a great dialogue about fostering and adopting dogs.”
Bonnie is the same dog whether she’s wearing her propeller hat or not, but the hat helps people to look past the untrue stereotypes they may have heard about pit bulls and get to know the sweet dog underneath it.
Follet went above and beyond to make sure that people could see Bonnie for who she truly is. She hoped the propeller hat would help her find the perfect forever home — and it did.
After going viral on TikTok for her propeller hat, someone saw Bonnie’s story and decided to adopt her. Bonnie is currently back at Grandma Betty’s Animal Rescue waiting to be transported to her new home in Virginia. It’s the best ending anyone could have wished for, and Bonnie can’t wait to settle in with her new family — and take lots of walks in her new neighborhood while wearing her propeller hat, of course.
