Heartbreaking Photo Shows Dog Waiting at Deceased Owner's Hospital Bedside
The Roman poet Ovid famously said, “Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.” His point was that patience can triumph where force fails.
But we all know that persevering in patience is hard, which is why so many of us struggle with it.
Next time we feel our resolve slipping, we ought to consider the indomitable patience a New Jersey pooch showed.
According to WXIN, Moose the dog lives in Boonton, New Jersey. This canine resident of the Garden State looks like any other number of pooches.
Large-bodied, jet black, and perky-eared, Moose loved nothing more than his owner. And like many other dogs, he would wait for his owner to come back when his owner had to leave the house.
However, Moose faced a situation that his canine mind couldn’t comprehend.
See, Moose’s owner had an illness and ended up confined to a hospital bed at home.
Moose grew used to waiting by said bed. Little did the patient dog know that one day his owner would leave the bed and never return.
You probably can guess what had happened: Moose’s owner had passed away. But Moose continued to do the only thing he knew to do.
He waited by the now empty bed and waited and waited — and waited some more.
An image captured by NorthStar Pet Rescue and shared on the organization’s Facebook page shows the dog sitting upright by the hospital bed, his gaze directed outside, the very picture of patience.
“Moose sat patiently next to his dad’s hospital bed, waiting for him to return, not knowing that ‘Dad’ had passed away,” NorthStar wrote.
“Moose has now been returned to our friends at Eleventh Hour Rescue and he’s taking the loss of his dad pretty hard.”
Indeed, science has confirmed a poignant truth that countless dog owners already know: It matters to your pooch how long you’ve been gone.
The Bark reported that a pair of Swedish researchers tested dogs to see if their reactions changed when their owners had been gone for lengthier periods. They recorded the animals’ reactions when their owners returned after a half hour, two hours and four hours.
The dogs showed much more enthusiastic reactions when reunited with their humans after longer periods. In other words, they missed them more and more as time went by.
Thinking about poor Moose after reading that is enough to break one’s heart. NorthStar noted that he’s a very sociable pooch.
“People, boy, does he love them!” the group wrote. “So much so that Moose would do best in a home where he wasn’t left home alone all day long, he misses his people too much.”
Fortunately, the patient pup won’t have to spend the rest of his days simply waiting.
Thanks to the help of Eleventh Hour Rescue, which was working with NorthStar on Moose’s case, the dog has found a forever home.
“MOOSE HAS BEEN ADOPTED by a wonderful family who will care for and love him for the rest of his life!” NorthStar wrote.
“Thank you again to everyone who shared his story!”
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