Let me tell you a story—one that begins in a plastic tote bag filled with pain and ends with a dog asleep on the couch of the person who wouldn’t give up.
This is the tale of a dog named Gandalf, not because he’s magical (though in many ways he is), but because his recovery story is epic in its own right.
The kind of story that ripples out and asks every one of us: What would you do if you stumbled into someone’s rescue—and found your own?
It all started in a grim space: a dirty green plastic tote. Gandalf was brought into the shelter as a stray, a French bulldog in shock, blood around his neck and chest.
“Something was very wrong,” shelter technician Kayla Seymour recalled. “I cleaned him, found the deep puncture wound… the bleeding.
My gut told me this was beyond the usual stray intake.”
So instead of the usual shelter routine, Kayla did something extraordinary. She volunteered to foster him herself.
She sat beside him at the hospital for six long hours. She worked a 13-hour shift, watched his surgery, then took him home to recover.
Because she couldn’t sleep wondering if he’d crash overnight.
Let’s pause here for a second. A shelter worker perfecting the job. Doing what’s required. But then instead of turning the dog back in, she said: Not today.
Not this one. She rewrote the script. Because she saw more than the injury. She saw the heart.
In Kayla’s home, Gandalf began to shift. The wound was debrided. Scars from the past emerged—old and new.
“It looked like he’d been used in fighting or attacked many times,” she said, transparent pain in her voice.
But here’s the part nobody should skip: despite the scars, Gandalf never displayed aggression. He let Kayla’s other dog and stray cat around.
He let healing begin in the quiet of a living room, not the chaos of a kennel.
And then the change grew: from shut down to sharing toys. From fear flicker in his eyes to brightness. From kennels to couch corners.
From URI (unused, returning intake) to Infinite Room in a house paved in hope. Samaritan → foster → forever. It was all unfolding.
After everything—after the surgery, the midnight vigil, the medication, the patience—Kayla adopted Gandalf.
She decided he wouldn’t return to the shelter because the shelter isn’t home. Home is a place you wake up in. Where your tail wags with delight.
Where you’re more than your trauma. “He still learns things like potty training or how to use the dog bed,” Kayla says. “But you can see the sparkle back.”
Now, why does this matter? Because we live in a world where dogs are saved. Yes. But how often do they rescue us too?
Kayla didn’t walk away from Gandalf just because the paperwork ended. She didn’t just check the box “foster.” She opened her life.
And in doing so, Gandhi—sorry, Gandalf—saved something in her: a wisdom that work and love are inseparable in rescue.
If you’re thinking of rescue—whether you are working a kennel, fostering for a weekend, adopting for life—take this with you:
Rescue is more than change.
It’s transformation—for both parties. It’s the dog with the worst wound becoming the dog with the biggest heart. It’s the helper becoming the helped.
It’s Kayla saving Gandalf and Gandalf saving Kayla from thinking “my day job” and realizing “my life work.”
Because when Gandalf looks at his toys today—when he nudges the stick, the squeak, the warm side of his human’s bed—he’s not just a healed stray.
He’s a reminder. That one decision, one sacrifice, one unconditional yes can rip out of tragedy and plant a garden of what we did right.
Meet Gandalf. From a fight victim to a family member. From forgotten to favorite. From “the dog we’ll fix for adoption” to “the dog we’ll keep for keeps.”
And if I tagged you in this story? It’s because maybe there’s a Gandalf waiting in your corner.
Maybe there’s a dog nobody kept around because they were scared of what could be. Maybe you’re the someone who doesn’t bring him back.
Because some dogs aren’t returned. They’re chosen. And in that choosing, one life doesn’t just continue—it begins.
Related posts:
Ten Feet Down, Surrounded by Rushing Water—But Rescue Climbed the Ladder
Twice Abandoned — This Rescue Dog’s Reaction to Moving Should Break Your Heart (and Fix It)
Senior Great Pyrenees Lets Toddler Spoon-Feed Him—and the Internet Can’t Handle It
Golden Retriever Becomes the Ultimate Wardrobe Assistant