It was the summer two years ago when Reza, one of the shelter’s longtime volunteers, spotted a scruffy black creature on the sidewalk while driving to work. When he got to work, he couldn’t stop thinking about what he had seen but hadn’t identified. So, he went back to check. He found it—a frightened, hungry black dog suffering from severe mange, abandoned on the street.
Reza brought him to Neda so he could get a bath and some food before heading to the shelter. He named him Taghdir (which means Destiny), saying, “It was destiny that I saw him and saved him from that miserable life.”
But during the two years he spent at the shelter, Taghdir remained shy and withdrawn. When visitors came to meet the shelter dogs, few noticed him—he wasn’t the kind to come forward and charm people. He rarely appeared in shelter photos or videos, either, as he was camera-shy.
Yet even this quiet dog managed to find a good family. Of course, we can’t ignore the helping hand of Farah Azari, who always looks out for dogs like Taghdir—the overlooked and vulnerable ones. She introduced him to a kind family she knew personally, and they accepted him without hesitation.
On June 3, 2025, Taghdir moved to Tehran with his family to his forever home. What a beautiful destiny life had written for him.
