A black Labrador Retriever or German Shepherd mix with a yellow collar, bandaged paw, in an indoor animal care facility setting. 3:40
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He gave up his hurt dog so she could heal

Sheba came to the shelter on foot, running beside her owner's bicycle with a soggy bandage on one leg. He was homeless, and getting her the help she needed was more than he could manage. more

The bandage was hiding a lot. Her leg was swollen above it and draining, and the staff could smell the infection. He told them she had been in a dog fight, which fit what they saw.

He wanted her to get help, and this was the one way he had. Before he left, he knelt down in front of her. “I love you,” he told her. “This is the best thing that I can do for you.” Then he surrendered her.

A black Labrador Retriever or German Shepherd mix with a yellow collar, bandaged paw, in an indoor animal care facility setting. The headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
Sheba came to the shelter on foot, running beside her owner's bicycle with a soggy bandage on one leg.

With Sheba sedated, the team cut the bandage away and found a severe break. The break ran through two bones, the radius and the ulna, in many little pieces, and there was no promise it would ever heal. To end the pain and the infection for good, they amputated the leg.

She never made any of it hard. “Through all of that, her heart shone through,” one of her caregivers says. Sheba stayed loving and sweet. She would curl up in a lap and look up at the person holding her.

Her outlook was fantastic, and three legs haven't slowed her down at all. Call her and she comes flying, fast enough that it's hard to picture how quick she would be with all four.

Her new family fell for a photo of her face and her big black ears, then took her for a walk, and that was that. They call it love at first sight. She also has taste in sticks. “Can you leave this stick?” one of them asks her. “It's a little large.”

She arrived with no house manners at all, which was both funny and eye-opening. She once climbed right up onto the table, pulled the whole salad bowl onto the floor, and started eating the salad.

Then there was the water. At a little beach where people take their dogs, she stared at it as if she had never seen such a thing, because she never had, and got more excited the longer she looked. So the family filled up a kiddie pool at home.

A black dog with a collar stands on gravel with her head turned slightly to the side. A headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
At a dog beach, Sheba meets water for the first time and can't quite work out what it is.

“There's something very deeply happy and energetic about her that's just kind of contagious,” her new owner says. A lot of people wish the man who knelt in front of her at the shelter could see that.

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