We’d nearly given up hope on Max.

A big, scarred pit bull who’d been in the shelter for 429 days. No one wanted him. Too old. Too rough-looking. “Dangerous,” they said.

But we knew better. Max just needed someone to understand him.

Then Liam walked in. A 10-year-old boy with one leg and a quiet, serious face. He didn’t ask for puppies. He walked straight to Max’s kennel, sat down, and whispered, “I know how it feels.”

We held our breath.

Max shuffled forward, sniffed him once… and laid his massive head on Liam’s lap.

The room went silent.

Liam’s mom burst into tears. “He’s been bullied,” she said. “He just wanted someone else who was… different.”

That day, Max went home.

Now they walk the block together — a boy with a prosthetic leg and a dog with a mangled past.

People stop. They smile. No one sees broken anymore.

They just see belonging.