Rusty
After work, preschool, and picking up Taylor at her school, we headed over to the library this afternoon to fetch a few things that had we had been waiting for & had recently come in. I picked up my Hoot book, and Taylor got her third book in the Chronicles of Narnia series, The Horse and His Boy (ISBN: 0064409406) by C.S. Lewis. Ian got a few Thomas movies and we headed back home to dig in. As we got close to home, I noticed a dog running on the other side of the parkway. This is not an unusual sight; we’ve seen dogs out running in the parkway thousands of times with their owners. This one caught my eye because there was no owner to be found. He was a beautiful rusty color, medium sized and he even looked both ways before he crossed the street! I stopped the van and watched for a few minutes to make sure there was nobody chasing after this beautiful dog. Finally, I came to the conclusion that this needed to be investigated further. I pointed the dog out to Taylor and Ian and explained that I was going to pull up and see if he was a nice dog or not. As the van got closer to him, I slowed down and called to him out of the window – sure enough, he came running with his tail high and wagging. Then he proceeded to sit next to the van and waited to hear what he was supposed to do next. Now, by the time he got close enough for me to get a good look at him, I realized that it was only on the very top most part of him that you could see his beautiful rusty colored fur – the rest of him was caked in mud, and his hair was very long. My van will never forgive me for what I did next. I told the kids that the dog was lost, and that we needed to take him to the Humane Society so that his family could find him. I opened up the trunk and he hopped right in (he was clearly a pro at this.) I sincerely thought that he would never make it over the back seat, but he did – in about .02 seconds. There was mud everywhere – the ceiling, the seats, the windows and the kids! Then he laid down and made a bed on Taylor’s winter coat that had been put in the back seat a few minutes before all of this had started. The kids were horrified and yelling, the dog was panting, and I was driving as quickly as I could to get us there! Thank goodness it’s just down the street! We got to the Humane Society, and he ran inside the building like a good dog should. The kids took a little time to recover and regroup while I filled out paper work. He was such a good dog – he just sat and looked out the window – he almost seemed to be looking for his master. Then the time came to say good-bye. The people at the Humane Society promised us they would find him a good home if his owner didn’t come to claim him in five days. Then the vet also pointed out that poor Rusty had probably been on the run for some time, given the state of his matted and muddy fur. We patted him on the few clean spots he had left, and we turned to go. Taylor cried and Ian got sad too, but we knew that it was the right thing to do.
After we left ol’ Rusty in his new temporary home, we headed over to the other building where the animals that are waiting to be adopted are. I figured that this could only brighten our mood. We saw puppies, and loud, barking grown dogs. We also saw bunnies, birds, and mice. Then we came to the kitty area – I could not believe how those kitties lifted the kids’ spirits. One cage after another, they were just so darn cute! And then it happened – we saw…….. A DOXIE! No way! She was the tiniest, cutest thing! Just about the same age as Toby. Spotted to the hills and she had amazing blue eyes. We fell in love for the second time today! I was almost relieved to find the ‘Adoption Pending’ sticker on her cage, otherwise I don’t know how we could have left without her.
So, that’s our story today. Sorry I didn’t get any pictures. Maybe the next time something like this happens, I’ll remember to whip out the camera at some point. I think that the best part of this whole thing is that with all of Rusty’s muddy, long, matted hair – I never really could tell for sure if he really was a he! And in honor of the animals that touched our lives today, I’m going to post some pictures from the Humane Society for Companion Animals. Click here for a list of all of their adoptable pets.
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