Home. Some cats and dogs never have one to call their own. We'd like to help change that by introducing you to an extraordinary homeless pet every Thursday. Today, we'd like you to meet Hachi, who was saved from a burning building over a year ago.
In the fall of 2009, firefighters saved the dog from a Gardena, Calif., auto shop that was set fire by a woman in an apparent suicide. Hachi, as he'd later come to be known, was the shop's dog and barely survived, suffering burns over 60 percent of his body.
At first, a slew of people stepped up following the incident saying they wanted to adopt the resilient dog, who received extensive treatments at the Affordable Animal Hospital in Torrance, but none of those forever homes materialized.
When Faith Summerson, founder of the Pal Rescue, heard Hachi was about to be euthanized about a year ago due to lack of space, she knew she had to do something to save him. She picked him up and he's been living at her rescue ever since, first at one of her kennels and now at her California home.
Summerson doesn't think Hachi's burns are the reason he hasn't been adopted. "A lot of people love the way he looks," she tells PEOPLEPets.com. In fact, Hachi has achieved a degree of Internet fame because he resembles the Terminator. "They feel drawn to him."
Believed to be about six years old, the Akita-Chow mix is energetic, healthy (his wounds are completely healed, but he needs to receive 2 thyroid pills a day), and very friendly. "He hasn't met anybody he doesn't like," she adds.
The perfect home for Hachi would be one that doesn't have cats, since that's the only being he doesnt get along with. He needs an owner who will give him long walks and bones to chew on. "He'll pick them up and lay them on his bed and lay his little face on them," she says. "He's just a real gentle, sweet boy."
For more information on how you can adopt Hachi, contact the Pal Rescue at this email: info@palrescue.org. The Pal Rescue was founded in 1995 and over the years has helped find homes for over 3,000 cats and dogs.
See more adoptable pets on PEOPLEPets.com:
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