Everyone who knows Simba knows that the four-year-old Pit Bull is a sweet dog and the best boy ever. Unfortunately, his wonderful reputation amongst neighbors didn’t do much to win over one elderly woman, who constantly rejected Simba’s friendly attempts to say “hi.”
“He always tried to greet her, but she called him mean and looked at him with fear,” Mehana said to The Dodo. “She never liked him because he was a ‘bad’ breed.”
But the elderly woman’s disdain didn’t stop Simba from trying.
One day, Mehena and Simba were going up the stairs in their apartment building, when Simba began to act strangely.
“He stopped,” Mehana recalled. “He began to bark and run to the door where the neighbor lives. I pulled the leash but he refused to come.”
But when Mehana bent down to pick Simba up, he noticed there was a muffled noise coming from inside one of the apartments.
“I heard a weak voice shout for help,” Mehana said. “She said, ‘Please don’t go.’”
When Mehana pushed opened the door, he found his elderly neighbor on the floor – having collapsed and broken her hip. She’d been on the floor for two days! If Simba hadn’t heard her weakened pleas for help, she probably would’ve gone unnoticed by the rest of the building. In short – he saved her life.
When the elderly neighbor realized it was Simba who’d saved her, she quickly warmed to him.
“She said, ‘Thank you for hearing me,’” Mehana recalled. “I thought she was talking to me at first. But then she said, ‘No, not you — the nice doggie.’”
Not only did Simba’s heroic actions earn him a new friend, but the rest of the apartment building loved him even more as a result – even those who, like the old lady, had previously dismissed the Pit Bull because of his breed.
“I know Simba is a wonderful dog,” Mehana said. “But I hope this event will make people see bully breeds differently. We, as human beings, must deserve their loyalty and love.”
As my mother always used to say, never judge a book by its cover.
