Stories like this show that dogs love freedom and appreciate beautiful sights just as much as people. But no dog should have to go through what his German Shepherd suffered.
When Herschel was taken in by some new owners, the dog thought that he would have a great life.
They took him from the shelter and put him into their home.
Sadly, it was not to be.
They barely took him out for walks and would often forget to feed him.
As any dog would, Herschel started pacing around, frustrated at the lack of exercise. His owners started getting really angry at this.
So they chained him to a pole.
Herschel wondered when they would let him off the chain and let him roam free.
But they kept him like that for one whole day. And another. And another. And another.
Soon enough, Herschel started to realize that he may never be free again.
Eventually, undernourished and trapped, he started whining and whining.
For a long time, no one took notice.
But a paperboy, who had recently taken up the route, noticed it every day of his first week.
It got to him. He could tell that something in Herschel’s whines said that he was being mistreated. So the boy called the ASPCA.
The ASPCA people arrived and were shocked at the site. Herschel was incredibly thin and sad. They broke the chain from around his neck.
From the marks on Herschel’s neck, they could tell that he had been chained to one place for a long, long time.
Herschel’s adopters later admitted that they’d kept Herschel trapped in that same place for five whole years.
But it wasn’t over yet.
Herschel had trouble adjusting to the shelter. He remembered how he’d been there years and years ago. He couldn’t imagine that things would turn out any better the next time he got adopted. If he were to get adopted at all.
But things did, finally, get better.
At the shelter, a strange man came along.
He was with a charity called Dog’s Day Out. This charity gives shelter dogs the best day they have ever known.
Herschel had never experienced anything like this before.
The first stop was to get some breakfast. Dog’s Day Out treated him to his first ever burrito.
He was taken all the way out to a mountain. He saw snow for the first time and had an amazing time rolling around in the strange, chilly, wet stuff.
The people managing the day then thought that they should show Herschel something completely different. As they were in LA, they realized that they could immerse Herschel into a completely different kind of environment.
But it was a struggle to get Herschel back into the car. He was having so much fun running around in the snow.
Eventually, the people packed Herschel in.
At first, the dog seemed sad. He thought that he was going back to the shelter or to be chained up or something else terrible.
But the car stopped in a completely different place. It was the beach.
Herschel had never seen anything like this before.
He screamed out for joy and tried to break free from his leash. He wanted to frolic in the sea so much.
Eventually, the Dog’s Day Out people took Herschel out to the water.
He ran over the sand and into the ocean.
Herschel had never felt so free. For the first time ever, he realized just how much he had to discover.
After seeing what a happy dog Herschel was, some potential owners that had come along decided that they needed to have him.
Even spending five years chained to a pole couldn’t stop him from being a fun loving and friendly dog!
But one question remains.
Why, when they had adopted such a loving dog, would the original owners have left Herschel chained up for so long?
They stated that they had mistaken his energy and excitement for aggression. A more likely story is that they were just too lazy to care for their dog.
But the good news is that Herschel is now safe and with owners that love and care for him.
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