WEDNESDAY JUNE 14 2000 - A dog named Binks is rescued
This morning at 10:00 I was arriving home from a quick trip to town to see our accountant when, as I drove just a short distance up our hill/driveway, I saw Sue standing in the field at the right side of our doggie play yard. She had a leash in her hand and was facing west toward our neighbor's property that runs alongside our hay meadow.
When Sue saw me drive up, she pointed toward that neighbor's property and when I looked toward the right, in the distance through the tall grass I saw a dog's head pointing our way, watching us. At first I thought it was our fellow, Anthony, but then I quickly realized that if it had been Anthony, he would have been running all over the place, having a grand time. This dog hiding in the grass was very frightened.
I left the car parked where it was in order not to further frighten the dog and walked slowly and calmly over to Sue. She said that while she had been walking the dogs to the play yard for their sniffing around fun, this skinny stray had suddenly shown up, first in the field by the play yard, then over closer to the kennels. Sue realized at once that the dog was a starving stray, and she tried to coax the frightened dog to come to her, but every time she approached him, he would run away from her. She would go back to walking our dogs, and then this fellow would show up again.
As she told me the story, the skinny dog slowly walked toward the cattle fencing between our properties and hid behind the neighbor's barn which is very close to the fence, but appeared a moment later sticking his head around the corner of the barn to look at us from what he thought was a safe distance away.
This was a really terrible situation! Here we had a frightened, starving stray dog, and if we couldn't catch him, he would almost surely find his way down the hill and across the road to our Angry Neighbor's property--and his loose running chickens!
Somehow it just seemed that this poor dog would never kill a chicken, but I knew Angry Neighbor would shoot and kill this dog even if he just saw the dog coming toward his property. We had to rescue this dog!
Sue went back to caring for our dogs while I set my mind to rescuing the new fellow! I drove up to the house, prepared a bowl of delicious tasting canned and dry dog food, took a container of fresh water, and big bowl, stuck the leash in my pocket and set out to do some "doggie catchin'."
The stray dog was watching me from the corner of the nice neighbor's barn. I was chatting soothingly to the dog as I walked slowly through the tall grass toward the cattle fencing that divides our property from our neighbor's, which fencing is only about four feet from where stray dog was "hiding," and he saw me place the bowls of food and water near (and on our side of) the fence. He ducked his head back around the corner for a few seconds, thinking I was too close, I suppose, so while he wasn't looking, I took that quick opportunity to toss several pieces of good smelling canned food toward his barn-corner hiding place and then tossed more pieces making a trail of food leading to the bowls I had placed near the fence.
I stayed by the food for a few more minutes and talked quietly to stray dog, who was peeking around the corner watching me. I continued talking to him as I walked back across the field toward our play yard. I stopped a "safe" enough distance away and prayed that we could rescue him!
Stray dog soon came from his hiding place by the barn and began searching for the good smelling pieces of food, gobbling them up as he followed the trail to his bowls. He squeezed easily through the cattle fence onto our shelter property and hungrily ate the food and drank the water, going from bowl to bowl, only occasionally looking my way he was so hungry and thirsty.
When he was finished he sat down by the bowls and looked at me. This was a good sign: He wanted help and was beginning to trust me. This was a really crucial moment. I couldn't do anything to scare him away. I continued the quiet "doggie-talking" for another five minutes, which seemed to me like hours, while he sat and looked at me. Then suddenly he began to wag his tail! I knew then that we almost had him!
Sue was still walking the dogs to the park and back to their kennels again, but had been keeping a close eye on how the "rescue" of this fellow was unfolding each time she came to the play yard. I turned to Sue and saw her watching us, and I motioned for her to drive her car to the driveway. She signaled back, okay.
Once again I began the slow walk toward the stray, chatting all the while, and then I knelt down, calling him to me. I had to be very, very careful not to frighten him away. He just sat there, wagging his tail looking at me, then finally stood up and very slowly and cautiously came toward me. I could feel my heart beating hard. We had to catch him.
I continued calling quietly to him to come to me, and finally the young stray walked over to me and leaned his skinny, brown body against my leg, and I began petting him. Thank God! He would be okay now. I hooked the leash to his collar.
Seeing I had the dog on a leash Sue parked the car nearby and walked over to pet him too. We soon had him safe in Sue's car, and off she went to our clinic with the young multi-colored hound mix. It's really hard to describe the tremendous relief we felt knowing that the starving, helpless dog was now safe.
This dog is the first one we've found that had a tag on his collar, but he also had a chewed off cloth leash hanging from his skinny neck, and he appeared to be half starved.
Normally, we would be relieved thinking that because of the tag we could easily find the dog's owner. But this poor fellow appeared to be in such bad shape that I really didn't know if we wanted to find his owner. There was a lot we had to find out.
I called the clinic and told them that Sue was on her way there with another new arrival and to please do the usual thorough check up. They said they'd call me later to fill me in on the condition of the dog and that they would do the tag check.
