A Peruvian fan, who rescued an injured puppy in Sochi during the World Cup, is looking for a way to be reunited with the animal to which he became so attached. Help is needed for this story to have a happy ending.

Ricardo Lazo and a group of other Peruvian national team supporters were dining at a restaurant in Sochi not far from the Fisht stadium when a little mongrel puppy ambled over to them.

“At first I thought that it was somebody’s lost dog, but then I saw that nobody was looking for it,” Lazo told RT via Skype from Lima. He said that he quickly realized that the poor thing wasn’t well, with one of its hind paws injured.

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“I took the animal in my arms to inspect it and it stuck like a limpet to me after that,” Ricardo recalled. Being unable to let go of his new friend, Lazo took the dog to his room for the night and no-one among the hotel staff objected.

“I love animals and I think that every creature has to have a good place to live and someone, who loves and cares for it. Therefore, I thought that this dog had found me for some special reason,” he explained.

Peru beat Australia 2-0 in Sochi, but failed to qualify for the play-offs, and it was time for the kind-hearted football fan to return to his home country in faraway Latin America. “I wanted to take the dog with me, but it was hard to organize because of all the paperwork,” he said.

However, he still managed to take the mongrel to a vet and paid for it to be placed in a local PovoDog shelter. Lazo made all of the arrangements without any understanding of the Russian language, relying solely on an online translator.

Back in Peru, Ricardo isn’t losing hope of one-day being reunited with the Russian puppy he saved. He hasn’t yet decided out a name for it, but said it will definitely be something Russian.

The staff at PovoDog say they’re eager to prepare all the required papers for the dog to travel and are now looking for somebody, who is flying to Peru and would agree to take it with them. “This story just has to have a happy ending,” the animal shelter wrote on its Facebook page.

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