It takes strength to smile through heartbreak, but 2-year-old Goose didn’t know any different. Even though he had just been tied to a fence and abandoned by his owners with nothing more than a brief note around his neck, the lovable Great Pyrenees-mix still mustered up a tail wag when a stranger in the neighborhood approached him.
According to Hawkins, the note around Goose’s neck said, “Don’t have time. Just take the dog,” which is exactly what the Good Samaritan did. And, although he was dirty and covered head to toe in ticks, Goose smiled through it all.
Hawkins took him home with her as a temporary foster, but Goose had already made his decision. “The whole ride home, he kept trying to climb from the back of my SUV to the front seat and eventually to my lap,” Hawkins said.
Hawkins believes that Goose had been an outside dog his entire life. The dog’s reaction to being inside Hawkins’ house for the first time broke her heart.
Goose’s smile continues to grow bigger and more infectious by the day. So much so that Hawkins thinks he could follow in his brother Zeus’s paw prints as a therapy dog in the future.