Posted on 11/23/2014 3:27:10 PM PST by afraidfortherepublic
Exhausted, covered in mud and desperately hungry, a team of Swedish athletes sat down for a meal as they prepared to take on a dangerous 20-mile trek through the Ecuadorian rainforest.
As they opened their canned meat, a tired Mikael Lindnord noticed a scruffy, miserable stray dog staring at him out of the corner of his eye.
Feeling sorry for him, he fed the dog a meatball and thought nothing of it, but as the team stood up to continue their race the animal started to follow them - and he didn't stop.
As the group of four navigated the final two stages of the 430-mile Adventure Racing World Championship, the dog befriended them and was eventually given the name Arthur.
Every grueling task the team face, Arthur would do the same. He swam alongside them while they kayaked down rivers, dragged himself up hills during hikes and pulled through knee-deep mud during treks.
Even when the team tried to get rid of their new member out of concerns for his safety - he refused to leave.
This meant when he was tired they stopped for a break and when he got stuck in the mud they pulled him out.
After six days the team finished the race, and the dog had suffered. They therefore decided to take him to a vet while still in South America to have him checked out.
During that time Lindord thought to himself that after their experience, they could not leave Arthur, so he decided to adopt him and take him back to Sweden. He applied to the Jordbruksverket (the Swedish Board of Agriculture) and was made to wait to see if his application was successful.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Great story. Tweeted the link.
I had to wipe my eyes throughout the article. Great ending to the story, though. Three cheers for Arthur and his new family!
“Dog was starving and he found a reliable source of food.”
Either that or it was some meatball!
Okay, that makes me cry. No words...
The best way to honor the life of a faithful companion who has given you unconditional love is to share your heart with another. Bringing a younger dog into your home to befriend an older one helps train the younger one and makes the passing of the older one a bit easier when there’s someone still there to feed and hug.
The big guy was Timber. He was my guardian angel, roommate, best friend and confidant. I got him in '98 when I returned from a tour in Korea. The little scrawny waif is Ranger, and the pic was taken shortly after I adopted him as a Katrina rescue in 2005. Ranger was heartworm + and severely malnourished, and Timber took to him just like a big brother. For the next two years we were the three musketeers, until Timber died of a stroke in his sleep one night in 2007. Thank God I had Ranger there to come home to every night. Now Ranger is getting up there in years with some frost around the muzzle, and I think it's about time we pull another one into the fold...
Oh Bay, we’ve done that for 27 years - always 2 dogs, or cats, and when one dies, we get another dog. No more cats. This is the first time we’ve only had one dog.
Our last big dog Lab mix died of brain cancer, one month before my dad was diagnosed with a glioblastoma. That was four years ago. It was a painful year to say the least.
I’m just not so young anymore and I look ahead and wonder if I could do right by another pet for another 10 to 15 years. I’m 54, so perhaps I’m being silly. I also have my own elderly mother to look after in her assisted living place which kind of makes me feel old before my time. Gah!
Awww Joe, Beautiful, beautiful dogs!
I can tell by the photo you have given them a good life. It’s hard to quantify, but darn it, they give us so much joy. RIP Timber and I hope Ranger is able to be in your life for a long time still. There’s nothing like a dog.
Awww! Good boy!
Please set your DVDs for the Thanksgiving ‘dog-a-thon’ on Fox at 8 pm.
http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/10/08/hilary-swank-great-american-dog-thon-fox/
The show was shot on Friday and Saturday so all the dogs will be available for adoption or foster.
The German Shepherd Rescue of Orange County was selected to bring the only German shepherd so a beautiful dog named Octavia will be shown. Last month she was scavenging scraps in central CA and was brought to Orange County by a kind family.
Great story. Thanks for posting.
AWESOME!!!
This is awful.
“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man.”
Mark Twain
Very cool story. I love the part when they lived happily ever after.
I’d like to be 54 again. But, though I’ve got a few years on you, I’ve got plenty of good ones left, too. All I would say is share your love and don’t start feeling old before your time. That’s a role that dogs play in my life, they take me for walks, keep me happy and on schedule. My dogs make me laugh every day - more than once. And what fun it is to enjoy the mayhem in our house when we suggest going for a ride to the store.
Your happiness is your blessing and when you look into those big brown eyes you know they are part of your soul.
If you treat a stray cat to a can of tuna, he will be your cat forever. It looks like it just takes 1 meatball to gain a hungry dog.
You might enjoy the pictures and video at the link.
A good dog will do for a man what few of his fellows would do.
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