Most of the people who walked by Anand Raman’s dog saw him as a dirty pitiful little soul.
They felt bad for the dog who was seeking shelter from the sweltering Dubai heat underneath a parked car in an office lot.
They threw him a few scraps of food and left him to his indigency.
But when Anand Raman first saw that dog in the parking lot of his sister’s job, he saw something very different.
And maybe the dog saw something in him.
Well, they both saw the very same thing… a best friend for life.
Raman was horrified to see the condition this poor dog was in.
“He was under a car eating scraps some of her workers had left for him,” Raman told The Dodo. “His fur was matted and his legs weren’t quite right.”
But despite his haggard condition, the dog seemed overjoyed to see Raman.
He lept out from underneath that car and was beaming with positivity and love.
“He approached me with a curious but excited disposition, wagging his tail excitedly,” Raman said. “This demeanor of his is what initially made me fall in love with him.”
It didn’t take long for Raman to decide that he and the dog would be best friends forever.
“We then sat there for a while on the sidewalk and he was content just receiving pets from me for a while,” Raman said. “I carried him into the car and he immediately fell asleep on my shoulder.”
Raman, his sister, and brother-in-law drove the dog right to the veterinarian to get checked out.
Raman got cozy with his new friend on the way there.
“He was exhausted when I first got him, which is why he fell asleep right away in the car ride to the hospital,” Raman said.
The veterinarian told Raman that his new friend had rickets which is why his legs were all wobbly.
The good news was that the condition was caused by malnutrition and that it could be reversed.
But Raman was in for another surprise once he took the dog home.
He realized that his dog was an entirely different color after he gave him a nice bath.
“I was surprised to find out that his fur was actually pure white after all the dirt and grime came off his body,” Raman explains.
That’s how Snowy got his name. He is named after the dog in the comic “The Adventures of Tintin.”
Now that Snowy was getting healthy and was all cleaned up, it was time for him to learn how to adjust to home life.
There was definitely a learning curve.
“Getting him adapted to a house at first wasn’t easy,” Raman said. “He wasn’t sure where to go and what to explore, so he’d just sit in a corner.”
Poor Snowy was desperately afraid that he would be thrown out on the streets again.
“When I would take him for walks, he was constantly terrified that I was going to leave him back on the streets, so he would yank his leash away from me and run back into the parking lot of our building complex,” Raman added. “This happened for a while until he realized we were not going to let him go anywhere fast.”
After a few short months, Snowy learned that he was safe and loved in his new home where he would stay forever.
“He sleeps and waits for us to get home from work, which is when he showers us with love and we reciprocate the same with him,” Raman said. “He also gels amazingly well with any dog he comes across and is very well-behaved with kids and guests.”