Dog

[AriGriffin]

Casey, my Spaniel mix dog, had to go to the vet this morning to get spayed. Mom and I dropped her off and headed back home since she didn't have to be picked up until late in the afternoon.

We were a couple of miles down the road from the vet when I noticed a dog lying in a field near the side of the road. It moved a little, but didn't get up. Mom kept on driving. I asked if we could stop to help the dog since it looked like it had been hit by a car. Mom said no because we didn't have money to take it to the vet. We went about a mile down the road, and Mom turned back around, heading back to the dog. She said that if the vet wouldn't treat the dog, the least they could do would be to put it out of its misery. We missed seeing it the first time around, but saw it on the second. Mom pulled over and told me to pick the dog up.

I get out and call to the dog. It looks at me and whines, but doesn't move. The dog looks to be a lab mix, so there is no way I'm going to be able to get it in the car by myself. Mom gets out and grabs the blanket we use for when the dogs are in the back seat. She folds it and we put it next to the dog- a boy. We gently rolled him over and used the blanket to carry him back to the car. I tried flagging some cars down to get help moving him (very heavy- dead weight), but no one would stop.

We managed to get him in the back and then Mom raced to the vet's office. I ran in and got the receptionist. She came out, looked at the dog, and ran back in to get another vet tech and a muzzle. They muzzled the dog and got him out of the car. The vet tech asked if we would accept financial responsibility for the dog. Mom said we would if we could, but we wouldn't be able to since we're almost broke after paying household bills and dental bills (we used a program meant to reduce the county's pet population to pay for Casey's spay surgery). I said we might be able to start a fundraiser and that I would call once I got home to find out how much they needed. They said okay and got to work.

I called after getting home and the vet said that the dog had been microchipped. They found the owner who had pet insurance. The dog had been hit by a car and is expected to make a full recovery.

When we went to pick up Casey, the receptionist said that the owner wanted to send us a thank you card and that the owner was going to drop it off and the vet's office would mail it. Mom told her we were just doing what we would want someone else to do if it had been one of our pets. I'm glad the owner had the dog microchipped- the dog did not have a collar on- and I am glad Mom decided to stop.

[BookstoreEscapee]

Aw, poor baby! I'm so glad he has an owner and they were able to be found.

[MaggieTheCat]

That's an awesome story -- much better than most of the ones I hear from my friend who works with the local rescue group. If she had been telling the story, the dog would have no ID, no chip, and no one would claim him even after putting up fliers and ads in the paper that he had been found. Unfortunately, this area gets a lot of dumped dogs (well, I'm sure all areas do, I just hear about a lot of them from my friend.) We found one just this summer that we took care of for a few weeks before getting him adopted out.

I'm really, really glad that the dog had been chipped and that the owner still wanted him. Even some dogs with chips get rejected by the so-called owners. My friend once found a dog with no collar wandering around loose in a park, and she took him in to the vet and found out he had a chip. But when the contact number on the chip records was called, the person who answered claimed she didn't have a dog, never had owned a dog, and didn't know any reason why someone would list her number as the contact number for a dog. So even though that dog had a chip, no owner ever came forth and he had to be adopted out as well.

[Seshat]

<looks over at her canine and feline babies>

Please thank your mother. She did absolutely the right thing. So did you.