My dad had a simple rule: if someone needs your help and you can give it to them, do it.
So it was an easy decision for my wife and I to raise an older corgi in 2020 so that the dog's owner, a professional who had lost his job and fallen into addiction and homelessness, could go to rehab and have the opportunity to return. at his feet. We took the corgi to our Hollywood apartment, bathed him, and set out to try to heal the stress and trauma he had suffered.
The dog also helped us recover from the loss of our beloved corgi months earlier. And after his owner got sober and got help finding a job and a place to live, the joy when they returned home together made any sacrifice we'd made seem more than worth it.
Over time, the man became a kind and generous friend to us, taking me to doctor's appointments when diabetes made me give up the car and taking us to dinner and to the Hollywood Bowl. He even offered financial help after he closed the company my wife had worked for.
It seemed like a literal Hollywood happy ending. But while celluloid stories end neatly, real life rarely does.
It didn't take long for the cracks to appear again.
On the surface, the man had regained the stability and success he had once enjoyed. But deep down, we saw doubts and anguish. He was afraid to take his corgi into public spaces, quickly undoing the work we had done to socialize the dog. And then the beloved corgi was diagnosed with cancer and canine dementia.
Eventually, the poor dog couldn't recognize the man he had loved for so long, and in the fall of 2022, our friend had to let go of the one true love of his life. My wife and I tried to be there for him, also feeling the loss of the dog we had once fostered, but the man withdrew and we struggled to maintain contact.
He resurfaced periodically, describing his deep, depressive hole and how he had crawled back into the bottle to deal with it. She seemed afraid of what we thought. But another lesson from my father, which has accompanied me all these years, is that no one is better than me and no one is below me.
So I tried to remind the man that the only shame in falling is not getting back up. He adopted another dog, a corgi puppy, about a month after his first dog died, but he didn't seem to help. He began to cycle through a series of jobs, losing one position after another. He disappeared for weeks at a time.
Our fears for our friend deepened during the recent vacation when we heard nothing from him. Our texts, calls and emails went unanswered. We waited for him to resurface.
Finally, in mid-January we received a call from the man's building manager. She had gone to her apartment to see why she hadn't paid the rent. She found our friend dead on the ground.
The medical examiner concluded that he had died of a heart attack around the first of the year. His new corgi had been locked in his cage for possibly up to 10 days, without food or water. The man's neighbors have already noticed.
In the end, we believe our friend died of a broken heart. We know how much the death of the corgi we raised cost you. I like to think that he and his dog are together again, somewhere.
We took my father's lesson literally. We saved a corgi to help save a homeless man. We also tried, and failed, to save man.
Ted Rogers is a writer and creative director. He is the editor of Cycling in LA.
