It takes a village to keep a dog!
Last night our 13-year-old Mini Longhaired Dachshund Aldo went missing on a trip out with the hawk. There was a tremendous wind, and we were in a bunch of trees. Calling and looking for him yielded no results, so I returned this morning. After combing the woods for sign—or even a body—and concluding he wasn’t there, I began visiting farm houses around. I ended up at a nearby vet’s office who gave me a number of someone who had found him. Simultaneously, my wife had listed him on a local website for lost pets. She got a call within minutes. He had been picked up last night in the wind and the rain by a Good Samaritan couple along the road about half a mile from where we had been. He was bathed and I assume fed. If he wasn’t claimed they were going to keep him and name him Winthrop from the wind they rescued him out of.
The poor old boy has never had a lot of synapses working between his ears (which are set rather close together.) Age hasn’t helped. I’m going to put a radio transmitter on him now to keep track of him.
It takes a village. It takes a village to keep a dog, to raise a child, to build a community and to save a planet.