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Rescued stray dog wakes up glad to be alive
Bill Kells was at his computer in Ontario, Canada, when he looked out the window and called for his wife, Krista. It wasn't a deer out there. It was a dog, and a very thin one. more
A rescue team searched the nearby woods for hours before they found him. He was starving and so dried out that even his nose showed it. He went straight to the animal hospital.
"It's something that you can't describe," Krista says. "Your heart jumps into your throat." She fell for him on the spot. He was very weak and very skinny, and when he looked at her with trusting eyes, she knew she wanted to foster him.
For the first couple of days, the vets weren't sure he would make it. He tried to eat everything, but he had to be fed a little at a time. After the second day, he started to come around.
The bills climbed fast, and the couple had to lean on donations. Soon a wave of donations came in online. "The community just amazed me," one of them says, and all that kindness brought them to tears more than once.
The dog, now named Billy, got stronger day by day and finally came home. For the first month, Krista did physical therapy with him every day. He put on weight and settled in fast. He got along with the couple's daughter and his new brothers, Remington and Diesel, and he and Remington became hard to separate.
SaveHe has brought a lot of people together. Every day they hear from strangers, some grieving pets of their own and some going through chemo, who look for news of Billy because he makes them smile. Krista says he taught her to appreciate what she has. "This guy didn't have anything," and now he is "just this great amazing guy."
Mornings have a routine now. "Billy sits right beside me and watches me make the coffee, and then we walk upstairs." Every single morning, he's excited. "It's like he just wakes up every day and goes, I'm alive."
