One dog saved his life, another gave it purpose

Alex Farr was born in Tehran, Iran, and immigrated with his family to the United States in 1985. They lived briefly in Pleasant Hill, and then moved to Lafayette.

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Bay Area might not be under siege by rats, but for many, it feels like it Farr’s life started to fall apart the last year of high school. He had taken advanced classes and was set to graduate early from Acalanes High School in Lafayette. While he watched all his friends enjoying their senior year, getting cars, making plans for college, Farr’s family was struggling through a financial crisis and was about to lose their home.

The family split up to live with friends, and Farr managed to graduate, but by then the damage to his relationship with his father, who struggled with equal parts alcohol and rage, had degenerated. With no place to call home, Farr headed to the streets of San Francisco.

Golden Gate Avenue and Jones Street in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district became his home. He got what meals he could from St. Anthony’s dining room, and he ran with a gang. His only thoughts for the future were on how to survive the night.

“I was tough,” says Farr, now in his mid 40s. “I was a really tough kid.”

Then he met Rocky, a pit bull mix whose past was recorded on the ropes of scars around his neck and the healed injuries down his back. Rocky was living just as tough as Farr, except Rocky hadn’t given up on life.

“He transformed me,” Farr says. “He took me under his wing and taught me so many important lessons. He was like my own brother. We both had been abandoned, but he wasn’t giving up.”

The bond between dog and boy was immediate, and Farr credits Rocky with protecting him and showing him what unconditional love looked like. Soon, Farr was sneaking part of his food from St. Anthony’s to share with Rocky, with whom he huddled in corners through the night.

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Through it all, Farr started to look at life differently. He didn’t want to be another kid on the streets. He wanted to make a better life for himself and for Rocky.

The day a black Audi jumped the curb, striking and killing Rocky, is the day it all fell into place for Farr. He no longer had his best friend. Instead, he suddenly had a sense of purpose.

“I’d made Rocky a promise that I was going to do something with my life,” Farr says.

His high school grades weren’t too bad, but no one saw much of a future for him. His guidance counselor told him there was nothing for which he was qualified, so he started working 30 hours a week and took about 16 units every semester at Diablo Valley College.

Later he enrolled at UC-Davis, but he was impatient and began looking for jobs in Silicon Valley.

“The whole time I worked at least 30 to 40 hours a week. Summers, I worked up to 70 hours a week to stock up money. I paid all of my own expenses with zero help from anyone. I always had at least four roommates and my rent was barely affordable even then.”

Farr would go to job interviews, sitting next to college graduates and knowing that now, no one could see the edges living on the street had carved. He managed to get an entry level job with a company, which allowed him to take some business school courses.

He began to realize that he not only had a talent for computer programming but for team building as well. His bosses recognized it, too, and he rose through the company.

After 20 years of writing software for companies and advising venture capitalists and investors, another dog’s story sent his life in a different direction.

In 2013, one of Farr’s good friends, a 27-year-old giant of a man named Lance, said goodbye to his dog, Shellie, and went out on a bike ride in Flagstaff, Ariz. Lance never saw Shellie again.

Lance was struck by a delivery van, was in a coma for several days, and in a hospital for 27. While he fought for his life, no one thought about Shellie. A few days after the accident, Lance’s neighbors reported a dog in distress to animal services.

Shellie, who was in pretty bad shape by then, was taken to a shelter and, in her frightened state, bit one of the shelter workers. Nine days later, she was euthanized.

When Lance emerged from his coma and was more himself, he asked for his dog. Shellie had been the light of his life, a companion that he loved like a child. Learning of her death, Farr says, sent him spiralling into depression. He never really recovered physically or emotionally, and he died earlier this year.

When Farr learned about Lance’s accident, he flew to Arizona. By then his friend was a shell of the man he had been, and they both cried over Shellie’s death.

Lance told him, Farr says, that he knew Farr could do something to honor Shellie by figuring out a way to stop another tragedy from happening.

“He said, ‘The only question is, will you?’”

It was a question that Farr took to heart. He started work on a plan for Lance, for Shelly and for Rocky. He knew that under the law, pets are treated as property, so what could he do to work with the law? What he came up with was a website that allows pet parents to register their animals and make decisions in advance on what should be done with them should their owners become incapacitated or die.

“It gives your pet a voice,” Farr says.

MyPetWill.com launched on Valentine’s Day and has been picking up steam. For less than $20, pet parents can register their pets, enter in information from the animal’s description to medical needs, from favorite toys to the number of times they like to go for walks. Pet owners can designate temporary and permanent guardians for their pets, set aside money for their care, and provide quick access to the information in an emergency.

Farr worked with a team of attorneys to make sure everything would be legal and ironclad in all states.

“I don’t know where I’d be if Rocky hadn’t take a chance on me,” Farr says, “That’s quite a debt to repay, and I hope and pray — for Rocky, Lance and Shellie — that I can.”

Farr, who lives in Marin County, now has three rescue dogs, a cat, two rescue horses and a turtle. He had planned to be the first to register his pets, but instead, he ended up third.

“An attorney from New York had been waiting and watching for the site to go live, and he got in ahead of me,” he explains.

Happily, Farr now has plans in place for his entire menagerie.