Healing the Red Heeler

A couple of weeks ago, Heather, Brandon, and I went to dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant. The restaurant is about a 10 minute drive from our house with about 5 minutes of it being through a less than desirable part of the city.

On our way home from dinner, we had to drive past the “Triple J” gas station that I like to refer to as the “Nine J” because the sign for it actually says “Triple JJJ.” That’s nine J’s total. The station is in that less desirable five minutes part of the drive.

It was pouring rain and I noticed a Red Heeler standing outside the convenience store. The dog was wet and had a frayed piece of rope tied around her neck. The rope was not tied to anything else.

I asked Heather if she had seen the apparently stray dog. She said she had but was trying to ignore it. She has a very soft spot for animals in need and was hoping to just drive past. My bringing attention to it caused us to both decide to turn around just to see if the dog needed food.

We pulled into the parking lot by the gas pumps and I got out of the car and looked at the dog. She seemed friendly enough but had a really bad rash and lots of hair missing on her back and neck. It appeared to be mange. I wanted to help, but did not want to step on someone else’s toes if she belonged to someone who was inside so I walked into the store to ask if she belonged to anyone in there. A dirty older man standing near the door said she was his.

“Do you want to adopt her?” he asked.
“No. I just wanted to know if she needed some food,” I answered.
“She can always use food,” he replied. “She’s probably tired of leftover Domino’s pizza crust.”

I went in and bought a $4.50 bag of dog food that costs $1.00 at most stores. I opened the bag and poured some out for the Red Heeler. I handed the rest to her homeless owner, JJ. (That’s 11 J’s all together if you are counting.) I hoped he would be able to carry the rest of the dog food and the six-pack of beer he had purchased back to wherever he and the dog were headed.

Heather and I told JJ that we wanted to help get the dog treated for her condition and gave him our phone number. Heather told him she would call a few places and try to find out where we could take her and how much it would cost and that we would handle it. All he had to do was call us back 3 days later and we would let him know what to do.

Heather called an emergency vet for their input that night when we got home. The next morning she called our veterinarian and called to Humane Society about trying to find a place to house her while she was being treated. We were going to get her mange treated, get her spayed, and get her vaccinated and de-wormed. We could not take her into our home because of the contagious nature of mange.

Heather asked what I thought she should tell JJ about how we would transport the dog and where she would stay.

“He’s probably not ever going to call us,” I told her. I hoped he would but I told her not to worry because she had done everything she could to possibly help that dog. It was going to be on JJ, who did not look like a picture of reliability.

JJ never called. It’s probably better for us personally, but I feel sorry for that poor dog. This morning on my way to work, I saw JJ on the side of the road. The Red Heeler was not with him.