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Wilma Price of Houston, Texas, often drives past a number of homeless people soliciting for money and says she doesn’t think twice about it.
But one day, she saw a transient man holding a cardboard sign near the local Wal-Mart parking lot that made Price stop in her tracks.
The sign indicated that his dog was in the pound and he needed assistance getting it out, according to Little Things.
“I’ve seen every sign in the world except that one,” she wrote in a Facebook post.
“I tried to pull to the side and of course everybody’s pissed off because I’m blocking them and I asked him what his deal was.”
The homeless man told her he needed $120 to get his dog out, but Price only had $8 to her name. She gave him her card and told him she’d see what she could do.
Price called the pound and they verified his story, along with the amount of money they needed to free the dog.
She asked him why so much, and the pound said $35 was for impoundment fee, then they gave it rabies shots, a heartworm test and a flea prevention.
When Price asked a friend to help pay, she advised going back to the homeless man and finding out his story. So Price did, and she learned the 30-year-old homeless man’s name is Patrick and that he was sent to jail for trespassing.
Authorities impounded his dog, Fred Frederick, while he was in custody for two days.
Soon after she became acquainted with him, Price went back to the pound with Patrick and the two got his dog back.
The dog was “shaking when he came out of the pound” because he was so anxious to see his owner. Patrick’s eyes welled up with tears as he was reunited with Fred Frederick.
He was so grateful for what Price had done that he offered to give her all the money he had collected.
“I wouldn’t accept it because maybe he can have some dinner tonight,” she says. Price says she wishes she had enough money to get Patrick a room for a week.
Afterward, Price took Patrick and his dog back to Wal-Mart.
Price writes, “Sometimes you just have to dig deeper and do what’s right in your heart.”
Sources: Little Things