It’s always hard when you have to leave your furbabies behind when going on a trip.
But sometimes, it’s just not possible to bring them.
Sometimes, when we have enough notice, we set them up at a pet hotel or daycare so they can be with other animals.
Or you can arrange with family, a friend, or a neighbor to take in your fur babies while you’re away.
Redditor SnooCupcakes8607 asked her neighbor, Robert, if he could look after her fur babies while she went on vacation for two weeks.
She has two German Shepherd dogs named Smokey, and Jennifer, and a cat named Oreo. She left and came back after two weeks and picked up her dogs from Robert’s house.
A few days later, she got this letter in the mail from Robert. And it was one of the most beautiful messages ever written.
“Good afternoon,” the letter started. “This letter is regarding your vacation two weeks ago, and how you let me babysit Smokey, Oreo, and Jennifer. I’d just like to give you a letter of thanks.”
What followed was a story she did not expect.
In the letter, Robert described himself as an old man, who doesn’t go out as much anymore because of his “unlively joints.” His dad, who he lived with, was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer at the height of the pandemic and had passed away since.
He had no wife, no kids, and no other family to live with.
He was alone in his house and he could die in his sleep and no one would ever know.
“Every day is just sitting around and wondering what I have done for this world,” he continued. “Until I met Smokey, Oreo, and Jennifer.”
And these three pets reawakened his life again.
“They gave me the motivation to restart my life again. I started waking up early in the mornings. I began to take walks outside with your pets for the first time in years. Every 10 minutes, whenever I felt sad for a second, they would bark or rub against my leg and make me laugh,” he shared. “The highlight of their stay was when I took them to the park. It was the longest time I’ve spend outside in a while. It didn’t just bring back pet interaction, I also met other people, started talking, and made friends with a handful of fellow human beings. I was so happy to finally be able to talk with friends again, interact with others, and feel like I’m part of the human race.”
Since then, he reported that he had adopted two dogs. They’ve been going on regular walks to the park to talk to the friends he made there when he was with Smokey, Oreo, and Jennifer.
The Reddit community loved the story and shared their own stories of how these furry companions just brightened up their day.
There were stories of their family dogs that brightened up everyone at the nursing home when they visited their family.
There were stories of how the nursing home staff would bring their cats or dogs and leave them with some of the patients.
