the stray

 

This dog stood by the side of the road, looking hopefully at every car that passed. I had seen it off and on for a week, getting skinnier. Finally, I called Dianne and told her about it. She said, "Can you go back and try to get it and bring it here?" I turned around and went back, stopping traffic on the highway in two directions—no verges in this neck of the woods. Many of the people who patiently waited were also concerned about the dog. But I had no food, and the dog was afraid of me. Likely abused.

   I didn't see it for a couple days, and then there it was again, this time on a side road. I stopped and got out of the car. All I had was some nuts. I threw them in the road, and the dog hesitantly approached to eat them.  I poured water into the nut can and put that down. I called Dianne to come with food. 

People stopped. This kid Holden, who said his grandmother named him after the kid in Catcher in the Rye, stopped, but the only food he had in the car was candy. He gave me his phone number and said he would take the dog to his place, where he had a big dog and 1,500 acres.

    Frank and Dianne got there with food and water dishes, and Dianne was able to sweet talk the dog closer. As she had succeeded in making it a little less fearful, a woman pulled up who was also worried about the dog. She gave it some wet dog food and said the only way her husband had succeeded in getting a scared dog into the car was to grab it. But when she lunged for it, it ran into the highway. Frank was so mad at her Dianne had to restrain him. We left the dishes there with food and water. We thought we would feed it for a while until it became more trusting and would go home with Frank and Dianne, at which point they would find it a home. (As if once they got that dog home they would give it away. Ahem.)

     So the next day I tootled over towards Frank and Dianne's house with water and sausages and crackers (all I had that I deemed acceptable) to put in the dog dish.

    No dog in sight.  As I was putting the food in the bowl, a woman in a big pickup stopped.

   "Don't you dare feed that dog," she said. "It's making all our animals sick!" 

   "All it could have is worms," I said. 

   "There's a lot of rabies in this neighborhood," she said ominously. "You take those dishes away. I don't want you feeding that dog."

    "They're not my dishes!"

   "Then give them to me. I'll take them," she said.

    Here's where I wish I would have taken her picture and a picture of her license plate and asked, "Is this your dog? Is this your road?" Instead, I meekly took Dianne's dog dishes and put them in my truck. 

     I texted Holden what she had done, and he texted back, "I would of told that woman where to shove it. She obviously didn’t want it or care about it because she left it there so why would it matter that you brought food? Does she want the dog to die? If you see her again please get her name for me."

    When I went back, the woman was nowhere in sight and nor was the dog. Dianne had given me some dog food, but we decided to throw it in the grass so as perhaps the bitch wouldn't see it. "She'll probably poison it," said Dianne gloomily. "If she wants it to die, why didn't she just shoot it, instead of leaving it to suffer?"

      I threw the food in the grass, and put a dish down with water. Dianne told me that  from the thirst the dog had exhibited, it didn't have rabies—dogs with rabies won't drink. I will go back today and see if the water dish is still there. And the dog. 

                                                    Dog whisperer Dianne at work.