Abandoned dogs often experience terrible struggles. Toby’s story is no different. But luckily, it has a happy ending.
Millions of dogs get abandoned by their owners every year.
How someone can just toss away an innocent and loving animal is hard to understand. And yet it happens again and again across the world.
This is what happened to Toby.
He’s from South Korea. For a while, he had a home, but his owner threw him out onto the street one day.
This would be dangerous enough in any country. But South Korea infamously has a dog meat trade.
Luckily, Toby found his way into an auto repair shop.
The owner of the shop took pity on the animal and drove him to a shelter.
But there was bad news. The shelter had no room for Toby.
The dog had to stay in an outside kennel in the cold, cold winter.
Then the charity Band For Animal discovered Toby’s situation. They arranged to take the dog to the USA, where they hoped a loving owner could be found for him.
Shortly after landing, the charity arranged for a welcoming foster family to take him in. It was supposed to be a temporary solution. But it would become so much more.
The Hoang family welcomed Toby into their home.
They already had one dog. Ann Hoang, the mother of the family, wanted to adopt a second dog. But they were unsure if it would be too much too handle.
They decided to try fostering a dog, just to see if they could manage a second one.
The Hoangs could tell that Toby had been through a lot the second that he arrived at the home. He was literally shaking with fear.
He spent most of the first day just cowering in his crate.
Eventually, Toby gained enough confidence in his surroundings to leave the crate for the first time.
But still, he was so, so scared.
He never took his eyes off of the Hoangs. Even though they were offering him a welcoming home, Toby had been treated terribly by people before. He wasn’t sure if he could trust them.
But the Hoangs kept showing kindness to Toby.
They knew that he had been through a lot. They took it slow.
Finally, Toby started to trust the Hoangs.
Ann Hoang’s husband beckoned the dog to sit on the couch. The dog decided, nervously, to join him. He climbed up, staring at the human. Ann’s husband gave him some reassuring pets to the head.
A strong bond had been formed.
Then, over the next few days, Toby’s confidence grew and grew. The Hoangs’ first dog, Charlie, started playing with him.
They would play fight and cuddle for hours on end. By the end of the first week, it was hard to imagine that the dogs hadn’t known each other for years.
But then something happened that could have broken the Hoangs’ hearts.
Two potential adoptee families wanted to visit Toby. It was possible that Toby would be taken away from the Hoangs forever.
“Toby was the first experience where I could see he [her husband] would be heartbroken without him.” Ann Hoang.
Ann took drastic action.
She called the charity that had taken Toby to America. She said that she and her husband needed to adopt Toby.
But Ann didn’t tell her husband that she had done this. She decided to break the news to him in a completely unique way.
Before Toby’s adoption could be finalized an official would have to inspect the Hoangs‘ home.
Instead of telling her husband what was happening, Ann told her husband that a potential adopter was coming to look at Toby instead.
She decided to capture on video the moment when the inspector revealed that the Hoangs were keeping Toby forever. And it’s incredibly heartwarming.
Ann’s husband started crying and crying, so happy was he to keep Toby.
Toby, not understanding what was going on, even ran up to Ann’s husband. He didn’t realize that they were tears of joy.
Now Toby has found a permanent home and will have many years of happiness with Ann, her husband, their other dog and their friends.
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