Sweethearts Candy Blog's

This is one of those "Awwww" photos that people are always emailing to you with unverifiable stories about them.  I usually discard such emails with extreme prejudice; however, I love dogs and I love traditional Christmas scenes.  So whether the accompanying tale is true or not, I don't know (Snopes is silent on it).

The apocryphal tale is that the pooch was an abandoned dog who sought a warm place to sleep for the night, so crawled into this manger scene and cuddled up with the baby Jesus figure.  Someone later found a home for the dog.  Anyone who would abandon a dog of such beauty is a Grinch for sure.

From the U.K. Mail Online:

Target the dog lived through explosions in war-torn Afghanistan, saved the lives of U.S. soldiers and was featured on Oprah - but she couldn't survive a brief stay at an Arizona animal shelter.

An employee at the Pinal County facility was today on administrative leave after euthanizing the shepherd mix by mistake.

'When it comes to euthanizing an animal, there are some clear-cut procedures to follow,' said Ruth Stalter, director of the Animal Care And Control centre.

'Based on my preliminary investigation, our employee did not follow those procedures.'
....

The idiot who killed the dog is someone I would personally love to horsewhip, but the army sergeant who adopted the dog is partially to blame.  He did not license the dog nor get a microchip for it, either of which would have quickly identified the dog to the shelter and saved its life.

Dogs are such loving, loyal and trusting animals, and often we simply do not deserve them.