ohmidog!

As often as we report incidents that reflect law enforcement’s lack of compassion when it comes to dogs, it’s good to pass along a story like this one — about a cop in St. Louis who showed some heart.

More inspiring yet, Officer Cheryl Goede saw fit not just to seek help for the two German shepherds she found living in a car, but for their homeless human, too.

Last week, Officer Goede was investigating a call about a  “suspicious vehicle” in St. Louis.

She approached the car and questioned the man inside, who had two German shepherds with him.

He didn’t immediately volunteer the information, but, as reported on Examiner.com, the man, identified as A.J. Hawk, eventually admitted he’d lost his job, then his home, and was living in his car with his dogs.

Hawk, while he went to school to become an architectural drafting artist, is now working odd jobs to pay for gas and food, and he and his dogs have been living in his car about a month.

Officer Goede is a dog-lover herself, and particularly a German shepherd lover. She puts out a Facebook page, called the German Shepherd Dog Community.

Goede didn’t haul Hawk in, or tell him to get out of town. Instead, she told him she admired him for not dumping his dogs at a shelter.

“I could never do that,” he responded. “They are my family.” 

When her shift ended, she logged on to Facebook to share Hawk’s situation with her readers. And she decided to donate to him some recent winnings from a contest her own German shepherd, Kato, was in.

She also set up a Chip-In account so others could donate to Hawk and his dogs, Caesar and Houdini.

Anyone interested in making a donation can do so by either using the Chip-In, or mailing it to: PO Box 140003, St. Louis, MO 63114.

(Photos: Top, Houdini and Caesar; bottom, Cheryl Goede and Kato; From the Facebook page of the German Shepherd Dog Community)