Senior pup found alone rescued by couple who wanted to rehome the skinny dog with a charity, but run into trouble when his neglectful pawrent demands him back, says: ‘Yesterday we decided that no we couldn't just sit there and give her back’

Author image for Laurent Shinar
Laurent Shinar • Writer and Editor
Aug 5, 2026 7:30 AM EDT

The last thing you might expect to find in a remote mountainous French village is an abandoned senior doggo, but that is exactly what happened to one canine loving couple while on vacation. But they had no idea what would ensue when they decided to take the dog with them.

This story really is a classic 'what do I do?' scenario. Imagine yourself in Europe, on vacation with your loved one, living life to the fullest. Exploring every nook and cranny that the everlasting landscape offers you. But upon one said exploration you happen upon a sad, skinny, senior doggo who rather obviously has been without a home for a while? Well, your dog loving heart says furget about the vacation, this dog just became the most important thing in our lives!

And that is what this dog doting duo did, taking the doggo into their care, giving it some basic medical attention and eventually taking it to the vet to get a check up. This is where things take a turn for the difficult. The vet informs the pair that the pup already has a mother, an elderly woman who lives locally. They make contact with her and she agrees to reclaim her pup. But when time begins to pass and her pawrent never came, and the couple needed to think about their return flight home things were getting stressful. What do they do with a dog who is not theirs, but whose mother won't come to take him? Will they miss their flight for the sake of a dog? We hope you enjoy finding out what happened in the end.
 

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    "A charity offered us help with food and vet fees till they find a family for her. Until then we will take care of this baby."
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    Older brown dog standing on asphalt looking sad and skinny

    Dog depicted by model

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    Hi, Me and my boyfriend are on vacation visiting his parents in France. Yesterday we went to visit a remote village in the mountains and we decided to explore some road where there's almost
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    no person living near. At the end of the road we found a dog whithout a collar, this dog is so thin, she's literally skinny to the bones. She was so hungry that she ate some biscuit we gave her, as it was the only thing we had on hand. Then we decided to
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    take her, cuz we knew she would de if we let her there, so we took her back to our place and feed her as well as giving her an anti parasitic. She is very calm, she didn't move, and didn't bark even once. And then this morning we gave her a bath to treat her fleas, turns out she is quite the
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    festy one as she bit me three times lol, she hates the water. Seems like she's not accustomed to taking baths honestly. After that we decided to take her to the vet to identify her, turns out she is a 9 year old dog, who's name is Diana. She belongs to a woman living near the remote
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    b
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    village. Just to add something there, the dog was found far away from the owner's place. Then the vet called the owner (seems like she is an old woman) to tell her that we found her dog, and let me tell you I never neveeeer heard someone with so little emotion as her, especially if your dog
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  • Well, this is quite the situation here. Obviously a dog in such poor condition found so far away from home with an owner who does not seem to be especially interested is no good deal. But now that the vet is involved and the owner has been contacted, not much can be done by this couple to stop the doggo from going back to the person who let her get this way in the first place. But as we always say, you have to hold out hope, even when the story seems to be at its darkest, a bright light usually soon follows.
     

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    was missing. She didn't ask any question on how the dog is doing, where we found her, nothing she was literally like "oh you found my dog? Ok" then the vet asked her if the dog had fled during Christmas cuz a lot of dog do because of the fireworks and only then she said "oh yes that's
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    right she did" but honestly with the picture does it look like the dog was alone for only 5-6 days? Doesn't seem so to me but maybe im wrong. Then the vet had to ask her three times to give her number (the owner's) to us as she would say "oh but it's difficult cuz I don't have a car, ect" so
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    we could see when we can give her dog back. At the end she agreed, so we called her back and litteraly the only thing she said to me was "yes" 3-4 times with again no emotion, we offered her to give her dog back on friday morning because we're not gonna be too far from where she lives at this time. And then she
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    said that it was fine and that she would send someone with a car to come pick the dog up. Again no questions asked, no indications like what Diana eat, what she likes nothing just like a transaction. The thing is, my boyfriend and I and even his
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    parents think that the dog was actually abandoned because : 1. The place we found her, if she had fled from her home we don't think she could have gone this far alone 2. The owner's reaction, she had no
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  • So, it sounds like this pawrent does not actually want their doggo back. We cannot imagine it would be all too easy caring for a senior dog when you yourself are a senior. And perhaps when the pup escaped one fateful night her pawrent said thank goodness and may the dog find another home. But of course it is tough to be so straightforward about such a heartwrenching situation. So her pawrent feigns interest to hide from her shame and guilt. Thankfully a solution to that is just around the corner…

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    feeling nothing she was not happy in the slightlest and didn't ask no question just said ok the majority of the time 3. The owner saying that it's difficult to give her number cuz she has no car blabla then suddenly she has a car?
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    4. The dog had no collar and was so thin, don't think the dog could have been like this just from 5-6 days alone We can't not give her the dog cuz it's illegal but it's there something we can do other than that? And are we maybe wrong
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    thinking she was abandoned? We don't want to send the dog to his dth when we just saved her from that... Keeping her is also not an option because we're not in a place where financially we can have a dog and we have other restraints. If we find a
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    solution to not give her the dog we will of course tried to find her a family. or give her to an animal shelter. We were thinking of calling the owner again and pretending that we found someone that would like to adopt Diana to see her reaction. What do y'all think?
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    Hello everyone, quick update at the end as well as answering some of the comments. First of all, I would like to thank everyone who commented, and adviced us on what to do. That means a lot to us to see that we are not crazy thinking the dog was abandoned and that it's
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    not just us hyper analysing a normal situation
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    So for the quick update: Yesterday we decided that no we couldn't just sit there and give her back, so we actually asked the owner if we could keep her so that if she says yes we could re-home her. Unfortunately that's all we have as the owner didn't
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    respond yet, we think about calling her today, if she says yes we will be changing Diana's ownership to us for the time we find her a family. Edit Guys we did it, the owner said yes immediately when we offered to take her pet and a charity offered us help with food and vet
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    fees till they find a family for her. Until then we will take care of this baby, the owner gave us all of the documents needed to change the ownership so for now Diana is our new little baby Again thank everyone for all the kind responses, bless ya heart. Thank you
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demands skinny dogs charity want found reddit story rehome pawrents neglect senior dog dog story alone pup trouble couple when rescue
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