Four months after a homeless veteran in Fort Worth surrendered his beloved dog “Jake” to a Fort Worth fire station, both are doing well and one is about to grace the cover of a children’s book dedicated to hope, inspiration, and second chances.<\/p>\n
Tom Miner surrendered the pit bull mix back in May,<\/a> tying the dog’s leash to the flag pole at Fort Worth Fire Station 8 along with a handwritten letter asking the firefighters to take care of his “baby.” Miner had been homeless for several months and decided to get back on his feet and get back into the workforce he needed to make sure Jake had a safe home too.<\/p>\n The fire crew adopted Jake and now pamper him as the Station 8 dog. Volunteers also tracked down Tom Miner and, with the help of the Fort Worth Fire Department HOPE Team and Operation Texas Strong, set up the veteran in an RV near Lake Worth.<\/a><\/p>\n “I took me a while to actually believe that it was mine,” Miner told us on a follow-up visit to his trailer park this week. “Still overwhelmed in a way just in awe about it,” he said of the help both he and Jake have received. “It’s hard to understand it.”<\/p>\n Two weeks ago, donations and the work of Fort Worth dentist Tres Morris and oral surgeon Reed Gibbins gave him a badly needed brand new smile.<\/p>\n And Jake, in a way, is smiling too.<\/p>\n “I saw Jake’s story pop up as I was having my cup of coffee, and I started getting very emotional over it,” said author K. Bishop who, along with her mother P.J. HarteNaus, are putting the finishing touches on their next children’s book: Fire Station Jake and the Second Chance Crew.<\/p>\n “It’s a beautiful, beautiful story how it’s come together,” HarteNaus said.<\/p>\n “I think that when when we heard Jake’s story, there was so many wonderful messages just in general from his story,” said Bishop.<\/p>\n Messages like empathy, compassion, second chances, and helping people and animals in need. The authors say a portion of the book proceeds will go toward worthy causes. The website for Whistleslick Press i<\/a>ncludes donation links to BADRAP<\/a> – a resource for pit bull owners, the Street Dog Project <\/a>– volunteers rescuing dogs from the streets of Dallas, and 4 Paws for Ability Service Dogs <\/a>– specifically a fundraiser for a 3-year-old boy from Fort Worth named George.<\/p>\n “He has already made a wonderful difference and has touched the lives of so many people already,” K. Bishop said of Jake. “And so we want his story to continue.”<\/p>\n As for Tom Miner, he’s still happy he made the choice to surrender Jake and find him a better home.<\/p>\n “All I knew was that everything was going to drastically change. And it did,” Miner said.<\/p>\n And now with the help of new friends like J.W. Wilson and Justin Collins, hopes to raise enough money to get his own truck and trailer so he can run his own recycling business and be self-sufficient again.<\/p>\n And his now soon-to-be-even-more-famous best friend? He’s happy for Jake’s new-found purpose too.<\/p>\n “He’s surrounded by love. He’s in the perfect place he needs to be. It couldn’t have come out any better,” Miner said.<\/p>\n The children’s book is currently in production and expected to be released in the next few months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four months after a homeless veteran in Fort Worth surrendered his beloved dog “Jake” to a Fort Worth…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,48731,118,117,109220,110227,149968],"class_list":["post-431593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-fire","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news","tag-homeless-veteran","tag-tom-miner","tag-whistleslick-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}