I wasn’t planning to stop. It was already a rough morning, and I was late to meet a client. But there they were—four little boxer pups huddled next to a ditch on County Road 12, shaking like leaves and covered in mud. I pulled over without thinking.
No mom in sight. No house nearby. Just them and an empty box half-collapsed in the grass. I used an old hoodie to scoop them up and place them in my car. Three of them were completely unmarked, but when I picked up the fourth, I noticed a tiny red collar around its neck, worn and fraying, with a small brass tag attached.
Curious, I wiped the dirt off the tag and saw a single word engraved: “Hope.” That hit me hard. Someone had cared about this puppy once. It wasn’t just a group of strays—it was a story I didn’t know yet.
I decided right then to get them checked at the local vet. As the pups were examined, I asked about the collar, hoping for answers. The vet scanned each puppy for a microchip, and to my surprise, the one named Hope had a registered number. Within minutes, the vet’s assistant was able to trace it to a family that had reported their puppy missing after a storm two weeks earlier.
