It Began

The afternoon my life took an about face began with a phone call on a sunny summer day. (I had not yet started my new job as a nurse so I was enjoying every moment of my free time by the lake, which was conveniently out my back door.) It was Leah, a neighbour from a few houses down. I can’t quite remember the exact wording, but the call went something like this: “Eliza, you have to get over here! A little puppy is in our yard and I don’t know what to do he’s so cute!”

Within about 2 minutes I was through the gate of their front yard. She knelt in the grass along with her 2 young sons. They sat trying to feed the sad looking creature water from a small toy bucket. Despite his pathetic appearance, he hopped around wagging his tail as if to say, “Hi hi hi, I am a good dog a good dog! Keep me!”. Leah looked up from the grass and said that she had heard pained yelping and ran outside to see the pup emerge from the dense woods that lined their yard. He tried to scamper around, his left hind leg constantly raised in what appeared to be a kind of constant itching position.

I sank to the ground legs crossed. He was there in my lap in an instant. I ran my hand from his head down to his tail. Along the way, his skeleton was clearly palpable. My heart twisted inside. I had seen many of these dogs and puppies along the roads and begging eagerly outside of the grocery store and that was hard enough. But, having a starving, itchy, suffering being in my lap was almost unbearable. He shoved his face into the crease of one of my knees and kept still. Leah, creases of worry lining her face said, “he is just so cute but I don’t know what to do. I can’t keep him here; Glenn (her husband) is too allergic.”

I had no choice. I called Ryan at work and explained the situation. We naively concluded that he could have possibly wandered away from his home and his owners were looking for him. The area where the RCMP and DNR (Department of Natural Resources) members who are posted here work and live is basically a peninsula jutting out onto the lake. There are few other local residents near us apart from one road about a quarter kilometer away where there are a few houses. We figured he had to have come from there as there was no way a pup as small as this could have made it much farther. Before putting him into the back of a police truck to go door to door and try to get him home, I wanted him to have a full belly. I brought the only thing I had: a small tin of wet cat food. He lurched hungrily forward and stood there shaking and growling the whole time he ate. I could feel the tears coming but managed to hold them back until Ryan pulled away. 

I walked back to my house with tears streaming down my cheeks. About 15 minutes later I ran to the door as a truck pulled up. I knew as soon as Ryan walked around to the back of the vehicle that he had failed. As much as I wanted him to have a home, I felt a surge of relief. If he was someone’s, they obviously did not take care of him. He sat in the grass and looked at me with that cock-eyed, heart melting gaze that only puppies can accomplish. I raised my head and met Ryan’s eyes. He said “Well we can at least keep him over night.”  Famous last words.

At that moment, although both of us would have denied it at the time, he was ours.

One of the first days...