When Poppy was adopted, the greyhound was nervous and spent her evenings crying. It wasn’t until her new owners bought one special item that she finally began to feel safe.
Poppy’s owner, Emma, told Newsweek: “For the first couple of weeks, she would wake up during the night and walk around the house crying. It broke our hearts thinking how sad and confused she must have been.”
So, the family gave Poppy a pink bunny toy to cuddle at night—and it worked.
The former race dog, who had been used for breeding, started sleeping with the fluffy toy tucked under her arm. Poppy, who lives in Australia, would play with other toys but never tossed her beloved bunny in the air.
“After a couple of months, she started showing signs of feeling safe and relaxed,” Emma said. “The pink bunny started to become less important.”
Now, 18 months on, the 8-year-old dog no longer needs her emotional support bear—but the toy is still always close by.
“She is confident, playful, happy, a little sassy, and super-affectionate and loving,” Emma told Newsweek. “Pink bunny is still always near her bed, and sometimes I’ll catch her with her head snuggled next to it.”
Emma, a business owner who manages Poppy’s Instagram account (@misspoppy.thegrey), which boasts almost 80,000 followers, said that the greyhound was adopted directly from the racing industry. In total, Poppy ran 53 races and bred three litters of puppies.
Every year, an estimated 18,000 greyhounds are born in Australia, bred in the hope of producing the fastest dog, according to Animal Liberation, a nonprofit animal rights organization.
Emma said that she was motivated to adopt a greyhound after meeting her neighbor’s dog and quickly realizing how “gentle and sweet” they are.
“I then discovered how many were being discarded after their racing careers, and that there just weren’t enough homes for so many of them. That was the catalyst for adopting a greyhound,” she said.
Emma has shared a montage of clips online showing Poppy’s transformation from nervous to secure, with many users suggesting she replace the bear with a real-life puppy.
“Nothing in this world breaks my heart more than a dog who’s been treated badly and whose heart is broken. They are purer and more sensitive than the majority of humans,” one user wrote.
Another commented: “Get her a puppy. She wants so badly to be a momma … They just get bred and then have their babies taken from them time and time again. They don’t know why—they just miss those litters. They don’t have short-term memory. She remembers all the babies she had.”
And while Poppy no longer needs her pink bunny for comfort, it remains a symbol of how far she has come.