Recently, Sara Spadacence, a resident of Los Angeles, California, was driving down the highway when she spotted something alarming. She saw a dog all alone on a steep embankment — and realized he was tied to a tree.
“A passerby said he had been there for
hours,” Lisa Chiarelli, president of dog rescue Frankie Lola and Friends, wrote on Instagram.
Spadacence immediately called her friend Joshua Steinberg to ask if he could rescue the dog. Steinberg rushed to the scene, armed with a bag full of treats. Steinberg approached the dog slowly, trying to make him as comfortable as possible.
“He wouldn’t accept treats, but he was eventually able to gain his trust to untie the leash,” Chiarelli wrote.
As soon as Steinberg had the dog secured, he transported him to Chiarelli’s rescue facility. It quickly became clear to Chiarelli that the dog hadn’t been around caring humans for a long time.
“He was filthy, and probably got the first bath of his life,” Chiarelli wrote.
Chiarelli got to work getting the dog, whom she named Marshall, acclimated to his new life. She set him up with a trainer, who provided the structure Marshall needed to start to decompress.
Once Marshall was feeling a bit more comfortable, Chiarelli introduced Marshall to something he seemed to have never encountered before: a toy. At first, Marshall had no idea what to do with the stuffed alligator Chiarelli had given him. But when he finally got the hang of playing with it, he became a pro in no time.
Chiarelli was surprised to learn that despite everything he’d been through, Marshall wasn’t anxious around other dogs. In fact, he was so social that Chiarelli made it a requirement for his future forever home to have another dog.
“That’s how Marshall is going to thrive, is if he has another what we call balanced doggy friend in the home,” Chiarelli said in a video for The Dodo.
Luckily, it didn’t take long for the perfect family to come along and adopt Marshall. Now he spends every day playing with his friends and as many toys as his heart desires.
“Marshall is thriving in his forever home,” Chiarelli wrote. “His mom says he’s perfect.”
