Dog Stories: Serendipity

Rufus was a dog I got for a variety of reasons. I hoped when I arranged to go meet him that I was going to find a medium-large sized dog that would make a good play-mate or distraction for Zippy, to take the pressure off Ginger, who is old. Ginger does play but she also likes to sleep a lot. And I'm not very exciting myself, so Zippy has a lot of excess energy to burn off. I also know that Ginger will eventually take her own trip across the Rainbow Bridge, though I expect it will be a few years yet.

However, when I met Rufus the first time, I agreed to take him (which was the spirit of the thing more than my thinking that he was the perfect dog) because I felt like there were not many good matches out there for him and a huge potential for a very bad match since he needed socialization and someone who would not be afraid of him.

But those who have a soft heart for animals know there's more than one way to go tumbling down the slippery slope to dog ownership and I have tumbled again. Yes, with the help of facebook friends who post pictures, I saw that someone was trying to unload a stray that had attached herself to them. She looked like a perfectly good lab to me. I went to see her. It wasn't love at first sight. I figured that if I took her on, I would be finding her a new home. The goal would be primarily to clean her up, give her some leash and home manners and pass her on to a good home. This was purely rescue. I think of her as a tax return dog. I got enough from my tax return to do this. The following is what happened.

The day I picked her up, I immediately took her for a bath and flea dip at Gus's in Albertville. He only charges $25! Right after that I went on to Dr. Adams to get her shots and a general exam to see if he noticed anything I hadn't. At the vet's office, I sat down next to a blind woman whose 13 year old guide dog was having surgery for a tumor on his foot. She absolutely fell in love with this lab, who I'm calling Lily for now. She completely latched onto Lily, including the leash. At my invitation, she even went into our appointment with us to get Dr. Adams' assessment of Lily's potential for her, whether as a companion or a working dog.

I'm not sure Lily is working dog material but she's certainly prime companion dog material. We had a long wait for Dr. Adams, about 2 hours. For much of that time Lily just slept between me and the woman. We exchanged numbers and I've let her know how things have gone with Lily in my home. She has told me the things she would need even in a companion, such as being house-broken and not chewing furniture.

Obviously, I don't know whether this will work out between Lily and her newest friend. For one, Dr. Adams suspects she may have hip dysplasia (I declined to get her x-rayed). Also, the woman needs to concentrate on caring for her old dog for now and we have to see what Lily is really like once she has recovered from the changes she's been through. But if anything seems like fate, this situation did. If nothing else, Lily provided Paulette with just the right sort of comfort during her guide dog's surgery and some hope for canine comfort while she deals with the possibility of eventually losing him.

I'll tell more about Lily in an another post.