Animal Stories

Heartwarming animal rescue and pet stories

A Stray Dog Appeared on My Back Porch at Six in the Morning During the Worst January of My Life – I Opened the Door, She Walked In and Lay Down on My Kitchen Floor, and Neither of Us Has Looked Back Since

by

The dog showed up on a Tuesday in January, which was a bad month for me for reasons I will not fully explain here except to say that I had recently retired, recently moved to a new city to be closer to my daughter, and recently realized that being closer to my daughter did not … Read more

A 71-Year-Old Widower Walked Into a Shelter After His Wife of 46 Years Passed and Met a Dog That Had Been Returned Four Times for Being Too Quiet – What Happened on Their First Night Together Left the Shelter Staff in Tears

by

Harold Gibbs told the volunteer at the front desk that he was just browsing. He said this in the same careful tone people use when they don’t want to commit to something they already know they need. He was seventy-one years old, recently retired from thirty-four years of teaching high school history in Dayton, Ohio, … Read more

A Rescue Cat Nobody Wanted Spent Six Months at the Shelter Before One Woman Took Him Home – Two Weeks Later He Did Something at 3 AM That She Believes Saved Her Life and Her Doctors Cannot Fully Explain

by

When Tom Larson adopted Oliver from the county shelter three years ago, the tabby cat was eight months old, underweight, and so skittish that he spent his first two weeks behind the washing machine. Tom — a 58-year-old electrician from Boise, Idaho — left food near the machine, spoke quietly when he was in the … Read more

Firefighters Spent Three Days Searching Before Anyone Believed the Dog Was Still Alive – When They Finally Reached Him and Carried Him Into the Light, His Reaction Left Every One of Them Unable to Speak

by

When the call came in, the firefighters of Station 12 in Portland, Oregon, assumed it would be a routine animal rescue. A dog had fallen into a storm drain near the edge of Riverside Park — probably scared, probably stuck, probably easy enough to get out. But when Lieutenant Marco Reyes and his crew arrived … Read more