pikalty 
“Her spirit is almost angelic,” says Mary Chirnside, owner of a white German Shepherd Dog named Marnina from Nebraska. Marnina’s personality is all the more amazing when you hear about her past.
Heather Unruh, assistant general manager at Hearts United for Animals, an animal rescue and welfare group, received a phone call from a woman who reported that there were eight puppies on her property and that the pups’ mother had disappeared.
Unruh knew she needed to help “when the woman said the dog had been on her property for three years, but that it wasn’t her dog.” She found the three-legged Marnina emaciated and covered in blood. But she came right up to Unruh, who loaded the dog and her puppies into her car and headed back to HUA.
The veterinarian treating Marnina guessed that she had probably lost her left hind paw and ankle when caught in a trap.
Despite all her hardship, it didn’t take long for Marnina to become HUA’s “office dog,” greeting everyone who came in the building. “She always had a smile on her face,” says Unruh. In July 2004, Marnina greeted her new owners: Chirnside and her 21-year-old son.
“She is pet therapy,” says Chirnside, a nurse in a nearby Nebraska hospital. “Nursing is emotionally draining. She seems to make it alright. I am thankful she’s part of my life.”
“I needed a dog,” says Lindsay Brown of Massachusetts., who had loved and owned many dogs, but found herself without one. In October 2004, Brown visited the Northeast Animal Shelter in search of a new friend. When she saw Broken Hero, an 8-year old, 42-pound, black-and-tan hound mix, her heart went out to him. “I couldn’t leave him in that crate for another minute,” she says. “There was no question. I had to take him home.”
Broken Hero was a stray taken in by a West Virginia veterinary clinic. He lived at the office and was used as a blood donor. “He was giving blood to save others,” says Betty Bilton, assistant director at the Northeast Animal Shelter. When he couldn’t give blood anymore, he needed a new home.
Bilton heard about Broken Hero from the Monroe County Animal League in West Virginia, an organization where Northeast Animal Shelter rescues many of its dogs. Although the shelter usually takes in puppies because they are easier to place, Bilton decided to take Broken Hero. “This is what rescue is all about,” she says. “You knew in his eyes he loved people.” It turned out that Broken Hero was only at the shelter for 10 days.
Today, when Broken Hero and Brown take a walk, he often stops to let a person pass. If someone pauses to admire him, Brown has to intervene. “I say, ‘Will you please pat him because he won’t move until you do,’” she says. Brown is so thankful to have Broken Hero in her life. “I don’t call him Broken anymore,” she says, “just Hero.”
