Dogs being social animals are not comfortable with being left alone and Studies have pointed out that isolation triggers stress, fear, and anxiety in these creatures. This is why when a fluffy black shepherd named Simba was left home alone, he quietly slipped outside his house through an open door and soon lost his way. But like most dogs, he didn’t howl or bark, and instead huddled down on a sandy shoreline, 22 miles away from home. He sat there with determination, waiting for his parents, even as rain left him soaking wet and cold, reported The Dodo.
Representative Image Source: Pexels | Jacub Gomez
All of this happened when Simba’s parents hired a dog sitter to take care of him in their absence since they had to leave the house due to a family emergency. But soon after they kissed him goodbye, the sitter called them to say that their furry friend was nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, a woman named Suzette Hall spotted the dog sprawled on the beach in front of her house 22 miles away. Suzette also happened to be the founder of Logan’s Legacy, a dog rescue organization in Irvine, California, but each time she attempted to catch Simba, he would run away.
Representative Image Source: Chocolate Labrador sitting on the beach (Getty Images)
To help the dog, Suzette set up a trap on the sand and kept several treats inside it to lure him back. “It was pouring rain and pitch black,” Suzette told The Dodo before explaining, “So, unfortunately, he got startled and ran.” Thankfully, a kind neighbor informed Suzette that Simba had fallen asleep in their garage the previous night, and suggested she set up the trap there. They set up the crate inside the garage, but the dog had run away from there too.
Representative Image Source: Dog in ocean close to a beach during sunset in Hawaii. (Getty Images)
With the help of yet another neighbor in the community, Suzette tracked down Simba’s parents and got in touch with them. When Simba’s dad heard the news, he instantly jumped into the car and drove 22 miles to the beach. But when he arrived there and started calling out Simba’s name, he was dumbstruck to see that Simba wouldn’t answer as if he had forgotten his voice in two weeks since he ran away.
Representative Image Source: Couple walking dog on beach at sunset (Getty Images)
Understanding what he felt like, Suzette suggested that he try a different approach. “I asked him, ‘What’s something that he recognizes besides your voice?’ And he was like, ‘Well, he always gets excited when I come home. He’ll hear my engine coming down the street, and he knows it’s me,’” she told The Dodo. Hence Suzette asked Simba’s dad to start his truck, and as soon as he turned the key in the ignition, Simba’s eyes lit up. He rushed towards his dad, wagging his tail, licking his face, and jumping with excitement.
The emotional reunion reduced Suzette to tears before she posted this story on her Instagram page in March 2023. “I have chills right now and I’m literally crying because it was just a complete miracle reunion. Simba came running, with his tail wagging when he heard his daddy’s truck start up. Just a complete miracle. Because I knew his fur was soaking wet, I knew he was hungry, I knew he was scared. He had traveled so far. Sweet Simba , I am so happy. You are safe and reunited," the post read.
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Robin Williams performs for military men and women as part of a United Service Organization (USO) show on board Camp Phoenix in December 2007
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Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.