Stray puppy adopted by man who she followed for 5 days of stormy mountain hiking, but when pup shows signs of wanting to return to the hills, her pawrent begins to question her adoption: ‘Did I mess up big by taking her in? Or did I actually help her?’

Laurent Shinar • Writer and Editor

Aug 22, 2026 7:30 AM EDT

When meeting a sweet stray dog out in the wild, our first instinct as dog lovers is to shower them with said love and take them home to get cleaned up and live a life of luxury indoors. However, depending on the life the dog had before, you might end up finding yourself questioning if they would have been happier out in the wild. And that is the story of one man who scaled a mountain and returned with a dog.

India is all too full of rescue stories as evidenced by the sheer quantity of posts on r/indiedogs, where our story comes from. On the one hand you might argue that it is a sad thing that so many dogs are left to the streets and end up in tough situations. While on the other hand there is a quiet respect for the way of nature and if these doggos keep breeding because life is good then the people kind of let it happen. Which is certainly a better attitude than places where stray dog culling is a thing.

Nonetheless, our story takes place in the country that lovingly gave the world the tikka masala in the mountain ranges of the north. One man and his sherpa heading off into the unknown. That is until they set off and are joined by two puppers. We will not spoil the rest of the story but we will say that this a really poignant tale that demonstrates how just because an animal might not live in the typical hooman way, it does not mean that their life is not any worse. Sometimes, it is best to just let nature do its thing.

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Dog lying on floor next to mountain cliff edge next to woman and tent
_{Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.}
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Wow, well this is certainly an interesting start to the story. It is not uncommon to come across doggos in derelict places like this who see hoomans as an opportunity to get some food. Which explains why the two puppers tagged along for the first day. But when they saw that they were not getting anything and that the hoomans were even shooing them away. The older pup reasonably took off. But the fact that the younger one stayed and was motivated enough to stick with this hooman to get drenched by the rain. Well, that is certainly out of character.
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Well, this is a big question. Perhaps the biggest question any pawrent who picks up a stray pupper has to ask themselves. Was their life better as a free doggo and have I potentially put them in a cage without my knowing? It is one that never fully leaves you and one that is important to ask. This doggo had a life of her own after all. An incredibly free one at that, roaming the mountains, doing whatever pleases her. So was it really all that bad? Did she need rescuing? If you ask us perhaps not, but it seems that she was looking for something that her life could not provide her with, and that is emotional warmth. Whether that will be enough to satisfy her remains to be seen.
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