On the day before Valentine’s Day, Suzette Hall received a message from a local railroad worker that nearly broke her heart. The accompanying picture showed a brown dog curled up in the corner of a cold elevator, and no one seemed to be stopping to help him.
“I can’t imagine how many times the elevator went up to the second floor and back down again as he just sat there, scared and cold,” Hall, founder of Logan’s Legacy 29, wrote on Facebook.
While the railway was open to the public, this particular elevator was exclusive to staff. Typically, riders could only access the elevator with a special pass — but this rogue pup seemed to make it through the doors without a pass, only to be left behind by the other people in the lift.
Thankfully, one kind employee refused to ignore the scared dog and reached out for help. Logan’s Legacy 29 volunteer Mary Nakiso raced to the scene, where an empathetic employee let her into the elevator.
Nakiso couldn’t get onto the elevator fast enough. When the doors finally opened, her heart broke even more than it had when she first heard about the dog’s plight.
“[A]s soon as they push the elevator door there, he was all scared, just sitting in that little corner of the elevator,” Hall wrote.
The worker held the elevator doors open while Nakiso swiftly scooped up the pup in a blanket. She carried the dog through the rain to her car, where the two finally had their first proper meeting.
“The baby is safe,” Nakiso said.
Clay’s journey to his deserved life was far from over, as he would still need a medical checkup and a foster or adoptive home. But as soon as he was in Nakiso’s car, Clay seemed utterly relieved not to be in the elevator anymore.
“[T]his sweet baby boy curled up in a blanket and fell fast asleep,” Hall wrote. “He was warm and didn’t have to go up and down in an elevator again.”
Clay passed his checkup with flying colors and soon went home with his beloved foster mom, Rebecca Taylor. While they searched for his perfect forever home, Taylor happily watched as Clay acclimated to his new life and friends.
“Clay is doing well in his foster home,” Taylor wrote in a Facebook comment. “He’s very sweet and getting on so well with my two daughters (6 and 8-year-olds) and my dog too. He’s going to make someone so happy.”
Taylor could see that Clay would make the perfect family dog, and, a few weeks later, all of their dreams came true when Clay was officially adopted.
It’s been a few weeks since his rescue, and Clay is doing better than ever. Once a disregarded elevator stowaway, Clay is now living the life he always deserved, with a home and bed to call his own. And his rescuers couldn’t be happier for him.
“He’s such a sweet baby,” Suzette Hall told The Dodo. “We love him so much.”
