Claire Cummings of Basingstoke, England was driving down the street one day on her way to a friend’s house when she noticed something strange on the sidewalk ahead of her. It was a little stuffed pig.

As she drove by, she looked into her rearview mirror, getting another look at the scene. And that’s when she saw the pig’s owner trying desperately to retrieve it.

Its “owner” was a big, seemingly sweet dog. The pup was leaning over the wall trying the fetch the animal that he had clearly gotten a bit rambunctious with.

“He could have easily jumped over the wall he was leaning on to get it but has obviously been trained very well not to jump over the wall,” Cummings told The Dodo.

Most people would keep driving and think “aww, poor pup,” assuming he would get his toy back eventually. Even those walking by might be reticent to pick up a no-doubt slobbery dog toy and hurl it back over the wall. But Cummings is a dog person and dog-lovers probably know that feeling of wanting to help any pooch in their proximity.

In fact, Cummings owns a dog walking company with her partner and she’s not the type to let a dog in need (even of something as minor as a lost toy) go unhelped.

That’s when she decided to turn her car around and go back and help the pup to get its pig back. A minor inconvenience for her, but she knew it would make a big difference in the dog’s day.

“We are huge animal lovers and would have hated to have thought that he could be sitting there waiting and nobody would help,” Cummings said.

She no doubt knows how much dogs get attached to their raggedy toys (even though some willfully tear them limb from limb – hey, dog love is hard to understand). According to Wag Walking:

“To our dogs, stuffed animals fulfill a variety of roles, from prey to sibling and plaything to squirrel-substitute, we could easily say dogs live vicariously through their beloved plushies.”

When she posted a photo of the pup virtually pointing down at the pig as if to say “Ma’am, can you get that for me?” on January 5th, 2020 to Facebook’s Dogspotting page she captioned it:

“Drove past this handsome chap who was waiting to get his pig back. Immediately turned car around to give it to him which he was thankful for.”

Of course, people had the natural reaction to someone helping a dog in need – mass kudos. But even Cummings seemed to find the attention a little surprising.

Her original post garnered over 29k reactions and nearly 500 shares because people were so touched by her gesture (and, like Cummings, could not bear to think of that poor pup staring mournfully down at his toy while no one helped). Most of the 1.7k comments consisted of people tagging friends who they knew would do the very same thing.

After all, you can’t just leave a doggo hanging like that!

What would you do if you were in your car and headed in the other direction but saw this scene in your rearview mirror? Would you go back, or assume someone would help soon enough?

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Source: The Dodo, Wag Walking,