DAWGS by Diane Trull

Author:Diane Trull
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Citadel Press
Published: 2020-01-30T00:00:00+00:00

THERE WERE NUMEROUS TIMES when I felt that life at the shelter had become a living laboratory demonstrating English mathematician Sir Isaac Newton’s third law of motion: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In contrast to the constant barrage of negativity we faced from the city, there was almost always an equal number of amazing people who came our way, people who were genuinely concerned about the animals and were willing to go the extra mile (sometimes literally) to help them. And it’s through these kindhearted individuals that many dogs came into our care.

Winter had finally released its frigid grip and spring was once again in full bloom throughout the Panhandle. Wildflowers exploded across the green landscape in a tumble of color, and the dogs were happy to roll in any patch of warm sunshine they could find. It was hard to believe that we would soon be dealing with the dog days of summer again.

The kids had just arrived at the shelter after finishing their day at school. Alix was the first to spot the young couple. “Mrs. Trull, it looks like we have some visitors.”

The man and woman had parked close to the gate and were trying to coax three medium-sized, tan border terriers from their car. My heart sank. Were they giving up their family pets? We were almost at full capacity. Spring is prime breeding season so we were already overflowing with the number of mouths we had to feed. But regardless of what brings a person to our shelter, I always advocate that we must be polite to everybody. It’s too easy to pass judgment when somebody relinquishes their pet to us, and the reality is that we don’t ever know a person’s full story.

I walked out through the front gate and ushered in the visitors. “Hi, welcome to DAWGS,” I said, extending my hand to the woman. “I’m Diane and this is Alix, one of my helpers. Seeing that you’ve got your hands full, I’m assuming you’re not here to adopt any dogs, are you?”

“Unfortunately, no,” the woman replied. “We already have two dogs at home, but we want to help these three in any way we can.”

Alix bent down to pet the dogs and they seemed happy to have her attention. “They seem really well behaved and they look like they’re in pretty good shape,” Alix said. “Where did they come from?”

“My husband and I were running errands and stopped at the drugstore,” the woman explained. “We were walking to the car to leave when Steve thought he heard a dog whimpering. Looking around we didn’t see anything. But as we kept walking, the whimpering continued. It seemed as if the sound was coming from the trash dumpster at the edge of the parking lot.”

Steve continued the story. “We lifted the lid of the dumpster and peered in. We were shocked to see not one, but three little faces looking up at us. It was so smelly and dirty in there.

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