“Pretty clever move. He basically recued himself.”

Valia Orfanidou was driving down the road in Greece when a little black and white puppy jumped out of the bushes and started running behind her car.

Watching him within the car mirror , Orfanidou could tell the small dog was bent following her…

“I thought, ‘No, another one,’” Orfanidou said. “Greece has about 3 to five million stray dogs. The streets here are like open-shelter shelters – whoever doesn’t want their dog anymore throws it in the streets, there’s no other opportunities. “

Orfanidou nurtures and rescues dogs in Greece, and describes the experience on his blog The Orphan Pet. She knew she couldn’t leave him in the middle of nowhere.

She stopped her car and tried to coax him inside. 

“When I stopped, he hid under the wheel of a car,” Orfanidou said. “Every time I approached him, he would hide, and when I moved a few steps back, he would start hiding and barking at me as if trying to mention something.”

After about 10 minutes of playing hide-and-seek with the puppy, she was ready to grab him and place him in the back seat of the car, where he began to happily wag his tail.

Orfanidou brought him to the vet for an examination and although the puppy survived from any food he could find on the streets, he was surprisingly healthy…

Now during a loving family in Athens, the puppy, now named Bandit, is growing quickly with the right care.

“He is independent and has a strong spirit,” Orfanidou said. “But very loyal .”

The bandit is eagerly learning about his new world – about soft beds, full food bowls, kind people and long walks.