Carpe Canem

Ren and the Not Ren

What a day yesterday was. I love May anyhow..... trying to cram as much into every day as I can. Yesterday was a little over the top though....

I had just finished hanging some sheets on the line and stopped to weed the new flower bed  when I heard a sound behind me. 

I turned to look, and there was a tall, golden, dog, standing under the big spruce, and pausing to look around as if confused.....

Speaking of confused...for a minute I thought it was Ren, the kids' dog. Her daytime kennel run is right where this dog had just come from and it looked so much like her.

I called, tentatively......"Ren?"

And the dog jogged away on long, loping legs, like a cheetah on the Serengeti. 

Not Ren.

It was a tall, lean dog and looked wild, every rib an anatomy lesson. It was tattered and battered and torn, but it did and still does look familiar, as if maybe it has been in a Facebook lost dog post at sometime. I followed it hoping to get a pic with my phone but it was just gone.

I posted a description on FB and told the family to BOLO.

When the boss came home it was back, trying to drink from the garden pond. Alan went out to see it and it cornered itself right in the horse yard with Sunny. Not a good plan as the latter is no fan of dogs. Thus Becky put Sunny in the barn and Ren in the house, and Alan gave the wild dog water and a can of food. Loved the water; spurned the food.

He couldn't get closer than 20 feet or so from it, as it trotted and loped nervously up and down the fence. The horse yard is fenced with page wire and cattle panel, so the gate is the only easy ingress and egress. We stood at the gate so it wouldn't leave.

Our local dog warden was called and said he would be right down to pick it up. Thus began one of the coolest things I have ever seen. 

That nice young man spent at least an hour....probably more like over two....patiently talking to the dog, cajoling it with treats and creeping up on it, crouched on his haunches. He covered that yard over and over again, hunkered down at dog height, gently offering friendship, trust, and food to the poor animal.

Talk about a dog whisperer. 

The warden discovered that someone, at sometime, had taught it to sit on command and got it to do so. It wanted to let him touch it so badly, desperately, wagging the tip of its twisted, loopy, tail in a tiny, wistful flutter. It couldn't seem to surrender its safety to someone it didn't know..... it was just too terrified

Then finally, almost suddenly, the loop of the leash was around its neck. As so very often happens with free-running formerly pet dogs, it instantly seemed to sigh with relief and turn from feral wild thing to somebody's lost pet. It trotted calmly beside him down to the truck, and when he patted the tailgate it tried to jump up in the back of the truck.....

How I hope there is a good ending to this story. The dog was taken, I believe, to Ayers Memorial Animal Shelter where it will be evaluated and cared for. Hopefully someone will get all the ticks off and feed its bony body and treat its paws, which were worn and torn right down to bloody flesh and nubs of nails.

Hopefully some caring someone just lost it, rather than discarded it to find its own way, and there will be a happy reunion.

At any rate, we will surely be watching to see what happens. I already was following the shelter on Facebook....now I will make a point of it.

Mad props to Brian Alling, our town warden on a job very well done. 

Good wishes to the poor nameless boy...he looked like a George to me.....I hope it all turns out well for him.

Update:  Owner has been found. Not George, but "Red" will be going to his home ....and how happy we are!

Safer now......