Homeless man chooses his dog over housing and much-needed surgery: “I’m not giving him up”
Donald Dickerson has had his ups and downs with homelessness, but his dog Duude is now his closest companion.”Every day he looks at me — I know I am loved. I named him Duude because that’s my dude. We have a close, close connection,” Dickerson described.
“He’s been hanging in there with me,” noted Dickerson, who spends his days and nights at a campsite in a Greensboro, North Carolina, woods alongside his dog. The kicker here is that the man had an option to get a better roof over his head but that would mean giving up Duude. Thus, he chose to pass it up just so he could be with his dog. “
“I could have already had a place to live, but they wanted me to foster my dog. I’m not doing that,” expressed Dickerson, who sadly has some health woes in addition to being homeless. His swollen knee has been giving him a lot of trouble for some time now. “It’s painful. I have to walk on this hill every day,” he expressed.
Dickerson needs a partial knee replacement right now, something he had scheduled up months ago, but doctors told him that they couldn’t get it done to him. “When the doctors found out I was homeless they said we have to postpone it until you find a place to live because someone has to come out and take care of you,” he explained.
Dickerson hasn’t been able to find a place to take in both him and his little Duude, but he hasn’t let that stop him from trying harder. “I cannot give him up,” he said, sharing his strong resolve. However, if the surgery means saying goodbye to his dog, Dickerson is ready to go without the procedure. “If I have to be homeless and go without my surgery and continue to go through the pain, I will,” he expressed.
“It takes that special individual because they care more about anyone else than themselves.” Lane Miller, who is extremely taken by Miller’s sacrifice, said this. Miller developed a friendship with Dickerson after seeing him along Wendover Avenue as she drove to work every day.
The homeless man “I’ve been seeing almost for the last year. I could see his smile through the mask – Okay, and that’s probably what did it for me.” added Miller who reached out to many organizations and agencies hoping to help him out. “I was upset to know he didn’t have a place to go but he was approved for surgery, so I started reaching out and I hit a lot of brick walls,” she noted.
The Triad’s Volunteer Center is helping Dickerson and Duude find a place to live. As Dickerson waits for the day to arrive, he said, “If I have to continue to be homeless, and not get my surgery, I will do that because I’m not giving Duude up.
There is an established GoFundMe page for the couple.