“She just climbed into my lap. I told my husband right then, ‘I love this dog!’”
Leaving a gas station in San Antonio, Texas, two years ago, Donna Killough was met with what looked like a ball of knotted fur with eyes.
“This little mop of a dog just walked up to me,” Killough told The Dodo. “She wouldn’t let me touch her, but I think she was looking for food.”
Killough put a few potato chips on the ground, and when she turned her back, the little dog shuffled over and gobbled them up. Seeing how hungry and matted she was, Killough knew she couldn’t go home without bringing the dog with her. (Killough’s son is also a video editor for The Dodo.)
A man in the parking lot saw the dog, too, and luckily, he had a trap in his car to help Killough catch the dog. They placed some food inside, and after a few minutes, the dog went right inside.
“I brought her home and got her set up in a crate in the garage,” Killough said. “You could tell she was interested, but we weren’t sure if she wanted us to get too close. Then my husband put his hand near the crate and she started licking him. We opened it up and she just climbed into my lap. I told my husband right then, ‘I love this dog!’”
They named her Daisy.
The next day, Killough and her husband, Trace, brought Daisy to a local rescue groomer to have her thick mats shaved off. It was a long process — but the couple was so excited to finally meet the dog underneath all that fur.
“She was so happy to be free,” Killough said. “After that she could finally move again, and she was very playful. She was like an entirely different dog.”
Daisy’s next step was to go to the vet — and despite having fleas and skin irritation from the mats, she was in perfect health. She wasn’t microchipped, either, so Killough posted ads across town and online just to make sure she didn’t belong to anyone.
“Nobody knew who she was,” Killough said. “A lot of people said they remember seeing her wandering around, but no one came forward as her owner. The vet said she was probably around 18 months old then, so it’s possible she had been living out on her own since she was a puppy.”
After that, the family decided to take her in for good. She was never overly fearful from her life on the streets, but Daisy still bears one small quirk from her past: She hides her food.
“Living out there, she never knew where her next meal would come from,” Killough said. “We’d give her a Milk-Bone and she’d hide it in her bed or in the couch. She even jumped up on my bed once and dropped a mouthful of wet food under my pillow!”
Now that she’s been with her family for over a year and a half, Daisy is almost unrecognizable from the tiny, filthy dog who came wandering up to Killough at the gas station that day. Her hair is always clean and groomed, she gets all the playtime she wants and she’s constantly snuggling with her four cat siblings.
“She loves the cats,” Killough said. “They sleep together all the time — and they’ll even sit down and groom each other.”
Seeing how quickly Daisy settled in, it was clear she wanted nothing more than to be part of a family.
“God thought we needed this dog, and this dog needed us,” Killough said. “We’re so happy to have her.”
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