This Dog Was Saved Minutes Before His Time Was Up!
Rocky Kanaka
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Charles (Tatum’s adopter):
He’s got a broken tail, he’s got, you know, chunks missing from his ears, he’s got scars on his face. He was 10, maybe 15 pounds when he was rescued.
Rocky Kanaka (Animal Advocate):
Minutes before this dog’s time was up, he was rescued.
Charles:
He was rescued by animal control and put into a high kill shelter. Minutes, maybe hours. He was rescued by his foster mom. She’s like, this dog’s been through a lot. I really don’t want to put him in a, a home even for a weekend that may not be serious. He’s been passed around so much.
And so Nicole’s like, Okay, well then we’ll just adopt him forever. The joke, you know, wife wanted a dog, I didn’t want a dog. So we got a dog, you know, she wanted a dog for the longest time, and she would just look online and she found Tatum’s photo online and she’s like, Look at this dog looking in my want him so much. I want him so bad. And I’m just like, “No”. We lived in a condo at the time, I didn’t want a dog in a condo.
I mean, for 2… 2 and a half months she just grinded me about the same dog. She’s like, I, I know him… I love him. I was like, No, you don’t. You know, And Nicole, you know, she inquired for more information. I’m like, when you do that to people, they think you’re serious. And his foster mom, Randy called us and she was just saying all the stuff that we wanted to hear. He’s lazy, he’s good with dogs, he’s good with cats, he’s good with kids.
She sent us pictures while we were out to lunch and I was like, “he is kind of cute,” you know? So that was just like the inch that she needed to take a mile. We drove an hour halfway, he jumped out of her car and jumped into our car, and that was four and a half years ago.
Charles (Speaking in Tatum’s voice):
Taum, what are you doing? I’m just trying on my costume. It’s not Halloween. That’s okay. Can we go trick or treating please? <laugh>. It’s, it’s not Halloween, bud. That’s okay. I’m just ready!
Charles:
When he first came home, we had the conversation, Nicole and I like, What, what would his voice sound like if he could actually talk?
Nicole & Charles (Speaking in Tatum’s voice):
I wanna run free! Let me out. Let me free… let me free. Okay, I’m going home. Bye!
Charles:
And It came out. I just said “Hi” in his voice. So then for like a few months, I would greet him with that “Hi” you know, he’d come home, I’d come home and I’d just greet him like that.
Nicole’s sister knew that he could talk and she would ask for videos. Uh, my sister, Nicole’s mom, a couple of friends found out the Snapchat, so I was sending them to like six different people at a time. We’ve had people say, This might do well on Instagram. One day it was last August, I was like, All right, I’ll make a, I’ll make him an Instagram.
Rocky Kanaka:
Now Tatum has millions of followers across social media.
Charles (Speaking in Tatum’s voice):
Who are you and what are you doing In my hau… wait? that’s me. That’s kind of handsome.
Charles:
It’s really, really cool. He’s got a lot of fans that I think really care for him. There are really people who reach out, especially during the past eight months, every day that are like, he got me through today. He saved my life. I just found Tatum, I can’t believe I haven’t found him before. And so that’s really cool to know. And that’s, that makes it easy. That makes it me not care about vulnerability. That makes me not care what people think because there’s enough people out there who need and want to see him.
Charles (Speaking in Tatum’s voice):
I just, I made so many new friends and I love my new friends and my old friends and you know, I just, I just really happy.
