Twisp of Fate

About 3 weeks ago, we were coming home late from a Friday evening of listening to live music in Winthrop.  It was about 11:30 pm.  We started to turn onto the Wolf Creek Rd and saw a little animal out in the middle of the road – it was a small black & white terrier type dog!  We stopped and I opened my door and talked to him, and he came over and put his head in the door and looked up at us.  He looked to be in kind of bad shape and forlorn; no collar or tags.  So we picked him up and put him at my feet and brought him home.

So then it was midnight and we had a dog (we are cat owners).  He had canned chicken cat food to eat and was clearly starving, not to mention very dirty and smelly.  I put a notice on the Methownet electronic bulletin board before we went to bed, and also an SOS email to our neighbors who are dog people.  He had to spend the night in our cargo trailer (with water and a blanket) because he kept scratching on the door of the mud room and we couldn’t have him inside with the cats, or loose in the shop.

The next morning our neighbors more or less took over, bless their hearts.  They lost their own dog last year and are planning to get a new puppy this coming spring.  But they were dog-sitting a friend’s 2 dogs that weekend.  They got the lost dog to come into their garage and eat some actual dog food, and they had a collar and leash and a dog bed for him.  Then they contacted the two boarding kennels and Sherry at Aspen Kennels offered to take him in and shelter him.  She bathed and trimmed him and clipped his nails, and started to feed him up.  She said he must have been out there for a while, as his ribs were really showing, nails were long, etc.  The following Monday she took him to the vet to see if he was microchipped (not).  Then she made up flyers and took them around to vet offices, post office, etc.  I guess he was all over the local Facebook pages too.  But after several weeks of trying, no-one came forward to claim him.  Sherry said he was really a sweet little dog, very calm and just followed her around all day.

So a week or so ago my friend Sara and her husband Don adopted him and named him Ted.  We didn’t know about it beforehand because they arranged it with Sherry at the kennel.  But we are so happy for this turn of events, because now we will get to see him with his new family!

Speaking of family, we just had a nice visit with daughter Gretchen and son-in-law Duane.  They were here two consecutive weekends at each end of a camping week up in British Columbia and Alberta.  Just left this morning to drive home to Medford in their new (our old) Honda CR-V.

Last night we all went to the opening of the new show at Confluence Gallery in Twisp, titled “Hearth”.  Rick has two tables in the show (shown in previous post) and I have rugs, scarves and shawls.  Afterwards we went to dinner at Tappi with Gretchen and Duane, and it was a fine ending to the visit.