Yeah We Script

A friend of mine is an artist in California. He recently told me this story.
Living in Southern California it's not uncommon for there to be a large homeless population. Some of them even have pets. One man--nicknamed Boxer (His name beforehand is apparently not to be mentioned), after his dog--would sit by the tattoo parlor with his dog, Joe. So yes, a man named Boxer and a dog named Joe. Strange, but they were a great pair.
Despite what people think, those who come in and out of tattoo parlors were pretty generous with their donations. On his breaks, my friend would go out and talk to Boxer while petting Joe. Boxer wouldn't give a real name, but told his story like this:
He grew up in a home where he was abused. Ran away at 15. Slept under bridges, tried to get a job here or there, but without a high school education the best he could get was something below minimum wage. Not digging the working scene he eventually just decided to pan handle. He got a decent amount of money, but once he found the parlor he stuck there due to the amount of money the customers gave him.
Being homeless, he did have to go places to find food. Usually just a cheap fast food place was good enough for him. On his trip to McDonalds during November 2006, he heard a small whining and snuffling behind him, just as he was going to dig into his sandwich. Well, that's how he met Joe. Joe had a collar on but was abandoned. He couldn't have been more than a year old. Boxer tried calling the owner on the tag (he borrowed a phone from one of the guys in the shop), and the owner simply told him, "There's a reason he was out there. We don't want him." and hung up. That is what started their friendship; just a man and his dog.
After a few years the two became near inseparable. Everyone loved the pair; the guys in the parlor would spare food, even buying dog food and getting shots for Joe to keep him healthy. They were great; until July 2014 that is.
July, in the middle of the summer, has a lot of people roaming around at any time of night. Well Boxer and Joe were sleeping in an alley by the parlor when a group of three men approached them. They demanded money, brandishing knives and threatening (mainly) Boxer. Despite being willing to pay, Joe wasn't too thrilled with this and "growled like nothin' i've ever heard," (As said by Boxer). It wasn't long before one of the men pissed Joe off a little too much and that made him lunge at the guy. What happened next is pretty obvious.
Joe ripped the first mans arm open, making him drop his knife. Boxer grabbed for the knife but was tackled by the third man. The second man stabbed Joe. The three scattered leaving Boxer to hold Joe, the dog softly whining as he bled out, with nothing possible to be done. Boxer said that Joe "wagged that little stumpy tail till' he died."
Boxer was in a slump for quite a while, as were the rest of the guys at the tattoo shop. After about a month, Boxer came in and asked for a tattoo: One of Joe to immortalize him. My friend volunteered to do it, and instead of charging him anything (Boxer had saved up a surprisingly large sum of money) he did it for free.
After the tattoo was done, Boxer had tears in his eyes. He was finally able to honor Joe and to thank him for what he did.
After that, the guys offered Boxer some work in the parlor (See: Cleaning up/janitorial stuff), and he's been able to get back on his feet. He actually has a small place about two blocks from the shop, and, as a present, the guys saved up and got Boxer a puppy for Christmas. They said that when they gave him that pup that it was the first time they'd really seen him smile since the tattoo. So that--that's my friends story.
tl;dr: Homeless man and his dog live outside tattoo shop my friend works at; after many years of being best friends, man is attacked, dog defends and is killed in the process. Homeless man is later gifted a tattoo of said dog, was given a janitorial job at the place, is up on his feet, and now has a new puppy gifted to him by his co-workers.