The RT reports, Dec. 28, 2014, that a hospital in Siberia, the Novosibirsk District Hospital Number One, decided to allow Masha, a dachshund, to stay.
Masha’s elderly owner had died in the hospital a year ago and, during that year, despite a number of attempts to have Masha adopted, the faithful pooch kept running away and returning to the hospital where she had last seen her owner in December 2013.
Nurse Alla Vorontsova told the Siberian Times, “Masha will always stay here, because she is waiting for her owner. I think that even if we took her to his grave, she wouldn’t believe it. She’s waiting for him alive, not dead. People in Russia tried to adopt her three times, but she always came back. I also heard that a number of foreigners wanted to adopt her too, but it is impossible – she doesn’t want to leave the hospital. And besides, we love her and she loves us. How could she live somewhere far away? She would just pine away.”
For a year, hospital workers fed and walked Masha, and now they have finally managed to make it official; Masha has her own cozy spot inside the building. Nurse Vorontsova said, “Here all the patients come to her, stroke her and give something tasty, especially the older people. She warms their hearts.”
When Masha’s elderly owner was admitted to the hospital, the dachshund was his only visitor.
Masha’s loyalty earned her the media nickname Hachiko – in reference to the famous story of a Japanese Akita dog named Hachiko.
Agricultural science professor Hidesaburo Ueno got Hachiko in 1924. The dog would greet her owner at the train station every day. After Ueno passed away, Hachiko kept returning to the station for 10 years, waiting for him to return. Hachiko became a national hero and later inspired a Hollywood movie, Hachiko: A Dog’s Tale, starring Richard Gere.
H/t FOTM’s CSM
~Eowyn