This past summer, Dallas Dog Rescue Rehab Reform (Dallas DogRRR) got a call about a puppy who’d been abandoned on a flooded baseball field in South Texas. The shelter knew the puppy needed help right away and quickly sent over a team to save him.
When the rescue team arrived, they couldn’t find the puppy anywhere — it was difficult to see in the heavy rain. But after a thorough search, one of the rescuers finally spotted him sitting perfectly still on an old onion sack.
“And there he was,” Dallas DogRRR wrote on their website. “Soaked. Cold. Frozen in fear. Just waiting. He never tried to run. He never barked. He just stayed, like he believed someone was coming back.”
It was clear to Dallas DogRRR that the puppy didn’t realize he’d been abandoned. He’d been patiently waiting for his family to come back for him.
“[H]e’d almost given up,” Patti Dawson, director of Dallas DogRRR, told The Dodo.
When the puppy arrived at the Dallas DogRRR facility, he was in rough shape. He was starving, weak and covered in hundreds of ticks. But the shelter staff and volunteers could tell that underneath the pup’s terrified exterior, he just wanted love.
“His temperament was super sweet, so he had definitely been handled by humans before,” Dawson said.
As the puppy received the medical treatments he needed, everyone at Dallas DogRRR was amazed by how quickly he started bouncing back.
“We named him Slugger because he fought to survive even after being abandoned,” Dallas DogRRR wrote.
After a few weeks, Slugger was feeling good as new. As he regained his energy, his personality started shining through. His foster mama learned that he had a passion for making a big pile of toys on his bed.
“Watching the transformation of Slugger has been absolutely amazing,” Dawson said.
Before long, a couple fell in love with Slugger and decided to adopt him.
Now Slugger will never have to worry about being abandoned again. His new family pampers him every day — and gives him all the toys his heart desires.