Two weeks ago, when Imgur user amiawifeorasword was prepping her home in Florida for Hurricane Irma to hit, she saw a stray dog across the street.
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While many people would have looked the other way thinking there were more important things to do, the woman called out to the dog. “She cautiously walked over,” amiawifeorasword wrote in her Imgur post, but when she got a closer look at the pup, it was clear that she’d been on the streets for a long time. It broke the Floridian’s heart.
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“She let me pet her a bit but looked pretty nervous at any loud noises or if I moved too fast. I went inside and got her a bowl of dog food and some water.”
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The dog ate with such speed that it was clear she hadn’t eaten a full meal in quite some time: “She went through three bowls of food and two cups of water before taking a breath. And each time I went back in the house she waited patiently for me to come back out.”
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With the impending storm, amiawifeorasword knew she couldn’t leave the dog outside to fend for herself. Gently coaxing her inside, “she hesitated for just a second and then trotted” in.
Once in the house, the woman was able to see what living on the street had done to the poor pup: her hair was matted with dirt or worse and she smelled “to high heaven.”
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Upon further inspection, amiawifeorasword found that one side of her body was covered in tar and her paws were bleeding.
After a failed first attempt at a bath, the pup managed to calm down and relax on the couch. (Naturally, her other pup was a bit jealous at first.)
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“The look on her face when I said it was time for another attempt at a bath. This time I took the hair clippers to her first. She hated the noise but allowed me to cut away most of the matts. I still couldn’t go anywhere near her ears though even with just scissors. It took four hours of cutting and scrubbing. To get her to a reasonable state. The hardened tar was so difficult to get off her backside. I ended up needing to shave away so much of her fur before it was all said and done.”
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After all was said and done, she looked much better.
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It didn’t take long for the dog to warm up to amiawifeorasword – and she was definitely a snuggler.
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After trying to track down the pup’s owners, she learned the poor girl’s heartbreaking story:
“I managed to find her original owners … They lost their apartment and couldn’t take her with them when they moved. They gave her to a couple they thought would care for her but I managed to get ahold of them too. They gave her away shortly afterwards also. I found one of person who said that she had been her boyfriend’s dog. And that her boyfriend couldn’t keep her so they let her out of the truck on the side of a road… That just broke my heart.”
But by that point, the sweet dog had made her way into the Floridian’s heart – this was her forever home!
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Amiawifeorasword decided to name her Amaterasu or Amy for short and the dog quickly caught on.
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What a happy ending to what could have been a tragic story! There are so many dogs out there that deserve our love, which is why you should adopt or rescue over shopping at a puppy store.
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