An animal shelter in Mexico came to the rescue of a young puppy after learning that the 7-month-old animal had been abandoned on a park bench.
On Nov. 22, after hearing about the dog in need, Marcela Goldberg — who runs local shelter Mascotas Coyoacán — arrived on the scene to find the pooch tied to a bench alongside a handwritten note.
“It hurts a lot to leave my dog here but I made the decision of leaving him because my family used to mistreat him and it would always hurt me to see him in that condition,” the note read, according to The Dodo.
“When I tried to approach him, he was growling and tried to bite me, but it was clear that he was just nervous and not plain aggressive,” she added, noting that with the help of a trainer she was able to unchain the golden retriever mix from the bench safely.
“He will no longer be called Max, as his name appears in the note, because he awaits a new life without remnants of his past life, of abuse and neglect. Now it will be Boston,” she wrote of the canine.
“He’s a sweetheart,” she added in another post.
Since first sharing Boston’s story online, the animal shelter has been contacted by numerous people eager to give the dog a new home.
“We can only pick one, but we have many puppies looking for homes,” they wrote on Facebook. “If you can open your home to another, we’ll thank you immensely. Their stories are just as sad, but got less media.”
“He already has a family waiting for him that has been carefully chosen,” Goldberg tells PEOPLE.
“We are working with him in gaining confidence with several people, so his future home will not have an issue with people from outside the family,” she adds. “He is learning to trust and is really happy, playing with balls and behaving like a puppy should.”