Teena & Boo were here for a visit on Monday afternoon and she was telling me that she'd found a dog recently. They ended up taking it to the SPCA but no one has claimed it yet. That SAME night, I was on my home from groceries when I notice a husky running alongside of the busy, narrow shouldered road.
In our neck of the woods, dogs on their own aren't entirely unheard of. I kept driving. Then I thought, what if that was MY dog??? I'd want him off that crazy road and somewhere safe. Plus, if Teena, who admits readily that she's not completely a dog person yet, can take the time, surely I can too! So I turn around & pull into a parking lot to see if the dog heads for home or just keeps walking. Neither. It starts to cross the busy road towards me!!! I run out to get her as I see headlights coming over the hill. The dog is coming along but a little more slowly than I think is safe so I try to pull her along a bit but it yelps. What am I thinking? Grabbing a strange dog who most certainly has a mouth full of sharp teeth!?!??!? Luckily it seems to be the calm sort and follows me around to the other side of the car.
Well now what???? Apparently it figures I'm a good person and hops happily into my backseat with no prompting other than opening the door. It's a hot night and the poor thing has the thickest coat I've ever seen and is gasping for air and slobbering like crazy. Luckily the interior of the car has been thoroughly trashed over the last 7 years by previous occupants and I have nothing to lose here.
I decided I'd better phone Murray and make sure it's OK to bring a huge, completely unknown beast into the home of our young children. He was onboard instantly. I took a swing through a couple neighbourhoods on my way home, in case someone was searching around for this behemoth. Unfortunately, not a creature was stirring so I headed home.
I wasn't sure what Murphy would make of our guest but he was happy and the other dog was calm and also content so they were fine. PW managed to keep a low profile for the night and no altercations arose. The dog appeared to be female and just wanted lots of water. She followed us around everywhere but she was more comfortable downstairs where it was cool.
We posted ads on Facebook and other online advertising but got no responses. The next morning I called the SPCA & animal control and the local radio stations. When the girls got up they were thrilled with the new addition. Sweetie came down while I was filling out a "found dog" form online and stared suspiciously for a minute before asking "Muuuuuuuum..... what are you doing???" I explained what it was and then she said "I don't think I'm really happy you're doing that!"
They decided to name her Trixie and followed her around everywhere, trying to pat her, brush her, feed her etc. Every time the phone rang, they'd get a fearful look and ask "is that the OWNER?????" as they hoped against hope that no one would ever claim her.
Eventually I got a call from the radio station as someone else had phoned in a "lost husky dog" that seemed to match up with my "found husky dog" ad. I phoned the number they gave me and it sounded like the right people so we drove Trixie over to them. As soon as we opened the door, Trixie hopped out and was obviously at home there. The elderly couple said they'd have been lost without her and couldn't figure out why she'd taken off. It's not a regular habit but they'd noticed that she'd gotten afraid when some neighbourhood kids set off some firecrackers and that might have sent her packing. She was near a Catholic church when I found her so I suggested she might have been on her way to mass!
They were happy to have her back and tried to pay us but we didn't want to take anything for doing something so simple. She didn't even eat anything while she was at our house. It was just the right thing to do and I'd hope someone would look after our Murphy if the same thing happened to us!
