Five winters ago a family friend told us about three puppies that were surrendered to Vafa shelter. The puppies were too young, weak and they may not have survived the cold winter of Hashtgerd.
With help of two other family members we decided to each take one of the puppies home. However, after two weeks, the other two family members realized that they can not keep the puppies. They both lived in apartments, neighbors complained and had to return the puppies back to the shelter. We had a yard so we were able to keep the puppy for three months, and we named him “Max”. At this time a bond developed between Max and myself, my wife, and our two daughters. Max became a member of our family.
Winter was over and spring and the nice weather arrived. Arrangements was made with the shelter to take Max back to Vafa. It was so hard to leave when the time came that the four of us cried for hours. We could not leave our boy behind so we decided to bring him back home with us. Our house had a yard and a small pool for Max to play in. When Max got bigger he started to bark loud while playing in the yard, so neighbors started to complain.
Against our heartfelt wish, we had to surrender Max to the shelter. After that day, we traveled a 200 Km journey back and forth almost every Friday to see Max and spend a few delightful hours with him. In the past five years, Max has traveled with us at least twice a year to different places such as the Caspian region, Province of Azarbaijan, and Province of Kermanshah. He is particularly fond of the Caspian Sea. After playing in the sand he sits and looks at the waves for hours.
We are thankful that Max came to our lives. He is the reason that our family started fostering and has fostered 27 small dogs including puppies within the past 5 years. Puppies that the staff at the shelter had asked us to help raise simply because they were just too small to survive the conditions at the shelter, and small dogs that just needed a more suitable place to recover after an operation. They all went back to the shelter after spending a few memorable weeks with us. Delroba, Liloo, Hana, Lala,… to name a few were our temporary guests. The last one we fostered was “Penney”. She was only a few days old in March of 2019 when Ms. Foroozan brought her to us, and after six weeks she went back to the shelter.
Caring for these lovable and devoted creatures wouldn’t have been possible without my kind wife, Negah, and my two animal-loving daughters, Baran and Tarannom.
Hashemi family
