September Real-Life Claim Story

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Some small dogs are timid and shy. But Maggie Barr’s pocket-sized dog Roo was born with big-dog spunk.

Waiting in dog years

Maggie had wanted a dog for a long time. She’d grown up with dogs, and felt like something was missing from her life by not having one. She wasn’t having any luck finding “the one” until a stranger changed everything.

Fate found Maggie, who lives in Washington, D.C., while she was visiting a friend in L.A. She’d visited several private animal rescues during her stay and still hadn’t found her dog. Then she pulled up to the last animal rescue on her list.

“About a minute before I arrived there, a lady had walked up trying to drop Roo off,” says Maggie. “The animal rescue didn’t accept dogs in that manner, so the lady walked right up to me and said ‘Do you want this dog?’ and handed her to me. In that moment I was like, ‘Wow, my dog just found me.’”

A race against time

Because Maggie was heading back to D.C. that night, things got a little hectic.

“My friend and I rushed her to the vet, got her checked out, got her papers, got her a ticket on the flight home with me, and got her a carrier. Literally hours after the lady handed her to me, she was on a flight back to D.C. with me.”

The fast and the furry-ous

Maggie says Roo got her name because she looks like a kangaroo and sometimes she bounces when she runs. Roo’s unusual Chihuahua-Italian greyhound mix makes her very lightweight—and very, very fast. In fact, she even outruns German shepherds at the dog park.

“It always makes people a little bit surprised once they see that,” laughs Maggie.