Meet Hero.

Jim and his wife, Elsa, were driving home from a winter weekend in the mountains when Jim thought he spotted something moving by the side of the road. Deer and elk frequently jumped out onto the road, but this looked smaller.

“Hold on a second, I’m going to turn around,” he said. Surely it wasn’t what he thought he saw.

He looped their SUV back up the mountain road. It was getting dark and fresh flurries of snow indicated that the temperatures were dropping fast. As they approached a small cross street, there it was: a thin brown dog, chained to the street sign of a country road. The snow around him had turned to muck, and he was covered in icy mud. 

Jim hopped out and approached. Immediately, the dog began wagging his tail and wiggling his entire body. Even from a distance in the dim light, Jim could see the dog’s ribs. He was actually bigger than Jim originally thought, with a blocky head and sweet eyes, but because he was so emaciated he looked like  more like a tadpole than a dog. 

Jim managed to unhook the chain from the pole, in between fervent kisses and wiggles from his new best friend. Whomever had abandoned him hadn’t left any food or water. Even still, the poor dog reeked or urine and feces. Oftentimes folks will abandon dogs on busy country roads like this, hoping a good samaritan will stop and have pity. But sometimes help arrives too late.

Elsa drove, while Jim held the dog on his lap the entire ride home to prevent him from pacing in the backseat. He was both delighted and frantic, licking, panting, anxiously looking about, whining, never quite settling. They decided to call him Hero, for having survived being abandoned in freezing temperatures.

Hero suffered frostbite to his paws and nose from having been left out in the elements for too long. X-rays would later reveal an old fracture to his skull and leg, both likely due to blunt force trauma. In addition, Hero had contracted heartworm due to lack of regular monthly heart worm preventative. The treatment for heart worm is long and painful, but Hero managed to pull through with minimal damage to his heart muscle, still remaining his wiggly, happy self. MBF had the privilege of covering all of Hero’s medical care including diagnostics, antibiotics & wound care, and heartworm treatment, totaling over $5000. He was fostered by Jim and Elsa during his recovery and later adopted to a family with two young boys. 

These days, Hero sleeps in the boys’ bedroom, and makes it his job to give everyone wiggles and kisses. “Our sons just adore him,” says Hero’s new adoptive mom, Kelsey. “They run around the yard together in the sprinklers and then collapse on the couch together while the boys play video games. He is the piece of our family we didn’t know was missing.”