Even as an adult, I find it hard to shake the blues of a great vacation coming to an end (as I am right now). What breaks the fall of my crash landing back into reality is the person (pup) I come home to: My Guy. The exuberant tail wagging, the standing on his hind legs as if he couldn’t leap up into my arms fast enough, THE KISSES!! It’s a love like no other, and a privilege to share it with him. Which is why I have no patience for humans who break this sacred bond with floofs in their care, like this heinous example: earlier this summer, Houston, Texas waste management worker Gabriel Wiley noticed something moving in his truck. It was a dog, helpless with heavily matted fur, roaming the space after being confined in an eight-foot-tall trash can. Wiley called the SPCA right away, and by the time they showed up to take the poor pup for medical care, Wiley had made a decision: he had to adopt this dog. And so he has! (After a quick check in with his wife to make sure it was kosher.) From People Mag:

A waste management worker got the surprise of a lifetime — and a new companion — when he spotted an abandoned dog in the bed of his garbage truck.

Gabriel Wiley was on his usual pickup route in Houston in June when he dumped the contents of an 8-foot-tall trash can into the truck’s hopper — the large, open receptacle where garbage is collected in the back of the vehicle, according to Good Morning America.

Moments later, Wiley said he noticed something moving on a camera feed aimed at the back of the truck. He quickly realized it was a small, matted dog.

“When you see something like this, it’s like, man, I gotta call somebody,” Wiley, who has been driving a waste management truck for seven years, told GMA.

The Texan said he believes the dog had been tossed in the trash on purpose based on the significant height of the bin.

“He’s not able to jump in the trash can. Someone actually put him in the trash,” he explained.

Wiley said he immediately called his local SPCA shelter. But when shelter employees arrived to pick up the pooch, the father and grandfather said he made a quick decision.

“I just told them I wanted him,” he said.

He added that he called his wife after he made the snap decision, and she also immediately said they should keep him.

The SPCA shaved, neutered and microchipped the dog, after which he — who Wiley later named Hopper — was reunited with his hero.

“He’s found home,” Wiley said.

[From People]

Hopper and Gabriel appeared together on Good Morning America and you can see how devoted Hopper is to his angel Gabriel. And happy! This boy is SO happy now! He has t-shirts and grandkids to play with and his hero papa, everything he deserves after having a ruff start. I mean, to be stuck in an eight-foot-tall garbage bin, in Texas, in June?? Gabriel pointed out that yes, someone had to have put Hopper into the bin, because there was no way for that little floof to scale it on his own. The flipside to that, which Gabriel graciously didn’t harp on, was that whoever put Hopper in the eight-foot-tall monstrosity, also chose it so that Hopper couldn’t get out on his own. It’s completely inexcusable! I thought it was bad that dogs were abandoned by their people at airports (and that is still a terrible thing to do). But literally throwing them out with the trash, into an inescapable can, is a whole new level of deplorable.

Congrats again on hopping into the best days of your new life, Hopper!

Photo via Facebook