Solo is a dog who spent years living on the streets of Los Angeles.

Many animals who are abandoned by their owners or run away from home end up becoming timid as they spend their lives trying to fend for themselves in the outside world. The risks they face include being hit by a car, being attacked by another animal, or being picked up by a pound.

Solo fought for his life every day on the streets of Los Angeles. As he was about to turn 11, Solo started to slow down, and life got even riskier for him. Eventually, Solo got tired of fighting and he gave up when he wandered onto someone’s porch and collapsed.

Solo finally got a piece of luck when the woman whose home he passed out at happened to get worried about the ailing dog. When she found him on her porch, the woman called Rocket Dog Rescue, which flew a volunteer to Los Angeles to try and save him.

Solo was given medical care by the rescue group, and then he hopped from foster home to foster home. Though he was adopted a few times, his parents returned him each time, which only made him more sad.

Finally, Carol Messina saw a photo of Solo online, and she immediately felt drawn to him.

“As soon as I saw his face on their site, I wanted to love him,” Carol said.

Carol called the rescue and learned that the woman who found him on her porch gave him the name Solovino, which is Spanish for “he came alone.”

This is also the name of one of the main characters in “Star Wars,” which Carol is a huge fan of. She even has a cat whose name is Star Wars!

“I immediately thought, ‘Well, his name is Solo!’ Come to find out, that’s what his foster dad had been calling him! I knew it was fate,” she said. “Then when I met him and saw how sad he was, I knew he was going to stay with me forever no matter what.”

When Carol finally got Solo to her home, she found that he was understandably scared of people at first.

“When he first came to live with me, he kept his tail between his legs for months,” she said. “He was very non-reactive to dogs and people and cats, and flinched any time anyone tried to pet him.”

She soon realized that Solo was virtually deaf, and that he had terrible teeth that left him in constant pain. Right when she got his teeth fixed, Solo turned into a completely different dog!

“The people who live around us are always commenting on how he doesn’t even seem like the same dog anymore,” Carol said. “He didn’t smile or barely open his mouth even to pant for months, and now he smiles and rolls around and will run full-tilt across the lawn a dozen times a day.”

Carol has also managed to help Solo get over his deafness by equipping him with a harness that announces his deafness so that people do not pet him without asking first. On top of that, Carol flicks lights on and off when she enters a room so she doesn’t spook him.

In addition, Carol is planning to move into a new home without stairs, so Solo can navigate the rest of his life with ease. Solo has inspired her to adopt other senior dogs in the future, and to offer hospice care to older dogs and help make a difference in their lives.

We’re so glad to see that Solo finally has the loving forever home that he deserves!