the patron saint of lost animals

Washington County's patron saint of lost and needy animals strikes again. This is the LONG version. (This will probably end up being a blog.)

Let's skip over the part where Nanook was having his own mini-crisis this morning.

My neighbor called at 7:30 this morning in a panic. While walking their dogs last night, her husband had been followed home by a giant Akita, obviously lost. He was wearing a choke chain (I can really get up on my soapbox about that!), but no tags (another soapbox, please). She and her husband had secured him in their small courtyard overnight, but she wasn't sure how long she could keep him there while waiting for Bonnie Hayes Animal Shelter to come get him—although she still hadn't called them.

So she had called me.

I'd done a deep conditioning (with oil) on my hair last night and so desperately needed a shower before I could get out the door. I hurried through my morning routine, gave my pups half of a walk as we made our way over to my neighbor's house, where I found about twelve people all standing around. The dog had gotten loose, having jumped over the six-foot courtyard fence. My neighbor ran up to me, took my dogs, handed me a spare leash, and sent me after him.

He was in the elementary school yard, playing with a group of very excited children. He was easy to approach and get onto the leash, although I'd gotten quite muddy chasing him around. VERY friendly, wanting to play with everyone. I should mention that he weighs probably about 135 pounds, and he's still a puppy.

The guy running the recycling truck stopped to give us a hand. He suggested that we try to secure the dog in the neighborhood tennis court (where there are twelve-foot fences) while waiting for Animal Control. Great idea! But the association wouldn't go for it. As I secured my own dogs back at my house, my neighbor talked to one board member who apparently wasn't interested in saying anything other than, "No, it's your problem." I got the association chairman on the phone, and he offered the solution of putting him in the RV area, which is secure. The chairman called the maintenance manager (who LOVES animals) to meet us over there—keep in mind, this is all happening before 9am—and he penned up the Akita in the fenced-in space surrounding the maintenance shed, next to the RV lot.

Great! Now my neighbor and I started walking back toward our houses. You also need to know that this whole time, she was telling me—with a great deal of frustration, nearly bursting into tears at one point—about how PG&E is refusing to offer assistance regarding a fraudulent draft that their company made on her bank account. Apparently, someone stole her routing numbers and used her information to establish a new utility account. She's even called the FBI, but apparently nothing much can be done without PG&E's participation, and they are thus far not cooperating. So this whole time dealing with the dog, I was also trying to help with this other situation.

As we walked back toward our homes, I saw Canella. I've been friendly with this dog since I moved in here during the summer of 2004. She doesn't live in our community, but her backyard abuts our community property, so we'd visit through the fence. I'd not seen her in months, and when I saw her this morning, my heart just broke. She'd lost a great deal of weight, had mange around her head and all over both of her back legs, smelled absolutely awful, and was limping around the yard. I was feeding her dog treats out of my pocket when my neighbor exclaimed....

The Akita was loose and was running right toward us.

We caught him—he was coming to see what we were doing—and as I was trying to call the maintenance manager and walk the dog back to the shed, a car pulled up and stopped. A man got out and said, "That's my friend's dog! We've been looking for him." So this man called his friend's voicemail and got the dog into the car. About forty-five seconds later, the owner drove up, and we had to tell him the whole story—including the fact that he needed to check his voicemail, because his friend now had his dog.

So, with the Akita successfully reunited with his owner—or at least with his owner's friend—we turned our attention back to Canella. We had no idea what her address was, nor even what street she lived on. There's a big fence separating that neighborhood from ours, so there was no place to walk through from the back to the front of the house—or even any other house nearby.

When I called Animal Control and offered to walk someone over to the house if they would just come over here, they indicated that they couldn't do that. So I got out my Thomas Guide and got into the car to go exploring the very twisty roads of this labyrinth of a neighborhood off of NW Walker Road.

I managed to find the right street, and then went walking around ringing doorbells—which no one answered. It was just after 9:30am at this point. It occurred to me that if some angry dog owner came after me with a shotgun, there wouldn't be a whole lot I could have done about it, although I'd at least thought to keep my wireless phone in my pocket.

I did finally find Canella's house, and a rather pissed off woman still in her nightgown came to the door. I think I woke her. As soon as I asked if she owned a dog named Canella, I could see on her face that she knew what was coming next—and she was NOT happy about it.

The lady told me some vague story about the dog that didn't make any kind of sense. She did say that they'd already gotten a neglect ticket from Animal Control and that they were taking care of the dog "right now"—except that I had just seen the dog and knew that nothing was being done. I noted the address and got back into my car. I called Animal Control. While there had already been a neglect complaint, that report had been called in on December 30th—nearly a full week ago. Obviously, nothing had been done in the interim to help this poor dog. Animal Control took my information and indicated they would forward the report to the officer handling the case.

It was about 10:30am when I was finally done with all of the phone calls. My dogs have had half-a-walk, though I have managed to (finally) get myself a bowl of soup. I'm still muddy.

I hope that Canella gets the loving and healing attention she needs and deserves very soon.