“Dogged” is a word that means stubbornly tenacious, and when it comes to devotion, there’s no dog more dogged than a fluffy white pooch named Boncuk who patiently waited outside the doors of a hospital for almost an entire week for her “hooman” to come home.

When Boncuk’s owner Cemal Şentürk went in for treatment in the Turkish city of Trabzon, the determined doggo trailed the ambulance he was riding in to the Medical Park Hospital.

Şentürk’s daughter Aynur Egeli explained that while Boncuk (meaning “bead”) was sent home each night and placed under “house arrest,” the next day, the cagey canine would be off to the hospital again—all by herself.

She kept up the routine for Şentürk’s entire stay.

“The dog comes here every day at around 9 in the morning, waits until the evening, and then leaves. She never comes inside, but waits for her owner [outside],” hospital security guard, Muhammet Akdeniz, told Turkish news service DHA.

The hospital staff made something of a mascot of Boncuk, feeding her and giving her water. Şentürk could sometimes see his loyal pet outside his hospital room window. Cheered by her visits, he’d wave to her and call her name.

After six days, Şentürk was discharged. His companion of nine years was there waiting for him, her tail wagging, jubilant to be reunited with her doggy daddy.

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“Boncuk has behaved really sweet during the six days and has managed to capture the love and affection of the whole staff,” the hospital’s international patient center director Murat Ercan told CNN.

“I missed her too, constantly,” a teary Şentürk told DHA. [“Dogs] bring joy… They provide companionship just like humans—and they make people happy.”

You can teach a dog to sit. You can teach a dog to roll over. You can teach a dog to fetch. But loving their humans? That’s something some dogs like Boncuk know instinctively—and with all their hearts.

(MEET the faithful pup in the INSIDE Edition video below.)

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