By Sandra T. Molina
Whittier Daily News
MONTEBELLO, Calif. — If the loyalty on display the past week at Beverly Hospital by a little mutt sounds like a Disney movie, you would be right.
In what could have been a scene right out of the Disney classic “Homeward Bound” — the tale of three pets’ cross-country trek to find their owners — a dog was found last week waiting outside the hospital’s emergency room, ostensibly in search of its owner.
The tan-colored female mixed-breed pooch followed an ambulance to Beverly Hospital on New Year’s Eve.
“It was so cute how she would look through the doors as people walked in and out,” said security officer Rose Benitez.
For a week, the dog, nicknamed “Beverly” by hospital staff, walked around the parking lot when not searching for a sign of its owner.
“She apparently followed behind the ambulance,” said Benitez, who works the overnight shift and saw the dog as it circled the ambulance.
Benitez was surprised to find the dog still there when she returned for work the next night.
Head security officer Joe Lucero said the dog would sleep in the golf cart used by him and his staff.
“She even would ride along with us or follow us as we made our rounds of the parking lot,” he said.
She became the hospital staff’s pet as doctors, nurses and other personnel fed the dog during her weeklong stay, which ended Wednesday.
Lucero thought he had a lead on the owner earlier in the week, hoping to reunite the two.
However the patient in the ambulance the day “Beverly” arrived denied being the owner.
After talking with the woman, who lives only blocks away from Beverly Hospital, Lucero was out of luck.
“The woman’s family said she was their dog, but called back and said they were wrong,” Lucero said.
So the dog, who had worked its way into the hearts of hospital staff, was given a new home.
An employee, who wished to remain anonymous, adopted the loyal little dog on Wednesday.
“This is the first time I’ve seen something like this,” Lucero said. “But I think it made everyone here feel really good about the kind of love the dog showed for her owner.”