About 25 years ago there was a wonderful series on public TV called All Creatures Great and Small based on the experiences of James Harriot, a country vet in the Yorkshire Dales in 1930’s England… a thoroughly enjoyable series of anecdotes of his relationships with his co-workers and his clients, a proud lot of very poor, extremely hard working farmers. I don’t recall anything on TV in years that can match it for genuine warmth and its testimony to how magnificent human nature can be.
Let me share one little gem with you… While driving through the countryside our hero finds a lovely stray dog with no ID and an injured paw. He takes it back to his clinic, cleans up and bandages the dog’s wounds, and turns it over to the local shelter. A few days later he hears that the dog managed to find an open window at the shelter and is gone. A few more days go by and in comes a gentle, aging, childless couple with our little escapee in tow, obviously attached to him and afraid to admit that he was a stray they had found. When they ask the vet to give him some shots, he plays with them for few seconds, telling them it wouldn’t be necessary since he had done so just a few days earlier. Crestfallen, thay admit that the dog has followed them home and that they had been hoping above hope that no one would claim him, but they would be happy to see him returned to his righful owner. Then he tells them the whole story, and you never saw such joy as when these good folks come to the realization that they really can keep their new "child".
I highly recommend the series. It’s available on DVD.