Devoted dog wins hearts after spending days outside hospital waiting for owner

A pet dog in Turkey is gaining worldwide attention for her heart-winning devotion.

For nearly a week, the loyal Boncuk waited outside a hospital where her owner was receiving treatment. A video of the cream-coloured dog lingering outside the hospital entrance is making rounds on social media.

On January 14, Boncuk followed the ambulance that transported her owner, Cemal Senturk, to a hospital in the northern Turkish city of Trabzon. Despite being taken home by Senturk’s daughter, Boncuk would run off from her apartment and return to the nearby hospital daily.

“She comes every day around 9am and waits until nightfall. She doesn’t go in,” Muhammet Akdeniz, a security guard from the hospital, told news agency DHA. Instead, he added, she would simply poke her head inside whenever the door opened.

During the time that her owner was in the hospital, Boncuk would communicate with him through the hospital window. Murat Ercan, the hospital’s international patient centre director, told CNN that Boncuk has been Senturk’s pet for nine years. He added that during her daily visits, the pooch had earned the “love and affection of the whole staff”.

After spending five days waiting in front of the hospital, Boncuk was reunited with her owner Cemal Senturk on Wednesday. DHA via AP

Last week, on January 20, Senturk and Boncuk’s reunion was caught on video, with the pooch excitedly jumping to greet her owner as he exited the facility in a wheelchair.

“She’s very used to me. And I miss her, too, constantly,” Senturk told DHA.

This isn’t the first time that a pet has been recognised for its devotion. In 1925, a Japanese Akita dog Hachiko waited for his owner at a Tokyo train station for more than nine years. His owner, Hideasburo Ueno, was a university professor who commuted to work every day, with Hachiko accompanying him to the station and greeting him when he returned.

The professor died unexpectedly after suffering a stroke at work, but Hachiko kept coming back to the Shibuya station every day just as his owner's train was scheduled to arrive. Today, a number of bronze statues have been erected in places around Japan to honour Hachiko's loyalty.

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