Pit Bull Looks 'Confused' After She Is Returned to Shelter to Restart Search for 'the Right Family'

Tic Tac thought she found her forever home when she was adopted just weeks after the Voorhees Animal Orphanage took the stray in. But unfortunately, she found herself back at the shelter almost a year later.

"Tic Tac came to us as a stray from one of the towns that we cover from Gloucester City," says Jennifer Bailey, the marketing director at the Voorhees Animal Orphanage (VAO) in Voorhees, New Jersey.

"We love those lowriders. She's real short and squat. But the pit bulls sometimes take a little longer to adopt just because of all of the prejudices out there against them," Bailey tells PEOPLE, adding, "Tic Tac spent only about three weeks in the shelter when she got adopted out, which is fantastic. We were thrilled."

Tic Tac left the shelter with her new family and another dog about 11 months ago.

"We do always do a dog meet to make sure there's compatibility. But once they leave the shelter property, we can only advise everybody on the best ways to integrate the animals together and hope that they follow our advice," Bailey says about adopting out Tic Tac with another pup.

Unfortunately, Tic Tac and the other newly adopted dog had the "occasional sibling squabble" at their new home.

"I guess the last straw, so to speak, was at the very end of June, they got into a big fight," Bailey says of the dogs, adding that Tic Tac has scars from the incident. "I hate to say this, but in the owners' minds, one of them had to go, so it was Tic Tac. So back she came."

"It's always weird when an animal gets returned. They're all excited because it's familiar faces," the shelter worker says, but then the surrendered pets often start to get confused.

"That's the confusion that you see on her face," Bailey says of a photo of Tic Tac the shelter posted on Facebook after the pit bull was returned. "Initially, they're excited until they realize, 'Oh, no, I'm back here again.'"

"We always take our animals back at the Voorhees Animal Orphanage, no matter what. So she's back. Once you're a VAO animal, always a VAO animal," explains Bailey.

Luckily, Tic Tac's story has been making the rounds online. "She did get a lot of exposure. So she's gotten a lot of interest," Bailey says of the Facebook post about Tic Tac's return, which received over 650 interactions on social media. "Cross our fingers; she does have an approved application."

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"We'll persevere until we find the right family for her," Bailey adds. "Paws crossed, she will hopefully be going home [soon]."

To learn more about the Voorhes Animal Orphanage and support the shelter's life-saving work, visit the organization's website.