Here’s a real “rags to riches” story. This little dog spent the better part of last year lost and running from one place to another on our campus. Several of us tried in vain to catch her. When we first noticed her, she had a long chain attached to her collar. But slowly over the next few months the chain began to wear away and fall off. There were times when she was covered with mud. Other times, after bathing in the stream that runs through campus, she looked like she had been groomed. “We have to catch that dog,” a friend said after noticing her traveling across the foot bridge that leads to the athletic fields. But she always alluded us.
She led people on wild chases around the ponds on the lower road, took up with the neighbor’s pack of dogs, and basically learned to live large on a 1,100 acre college campus. You would think she had it made, but that was not the case, especially in a place where winters can be harsh, summers extremely hot, and rainy weather goes on for days. Everyone wanted to help her, but no one could. She was not going to be cornered, and she was certainly not going to risk being caught up in a human’s grasp.
I spent last Thanksgiving worrying if she had food to eat and even drove out to the college to feed her. I never knew where I would find her, but somehow she always turned up. Back then, she never allowed any of us to get very close. I left food at a distance and would drive off wondering if she had enough to eat.
A few weeks ago, we notice that she was extremely busy—more than usual. She was hurrying somewhere. Something was up, but we didn’t know what it was until someone called to say, “I think she has puppies.” She did. Five to be exact. We found her neatly dug out den on the side of a hill overlooking the campus. It was a safe place, a warm place, and a place where the wild animals that live in the nearby national forest would not find her. We suddenly realized, she was a smart dog. So smart, in fact, we teased that she may even have her masters’ degree in Survival.
Since there were puppies involved, everyone knew she had to be caught. She couldn’t continue rummaging through trash cans and stopping for empathetic handouts left by caring strangers. She needed a home—a real home. So a small, safe animal trap was set, and she was finally caught. It would be an okay story if it ended here, but it doesn’t.
In the days that followed her “capture,” the campus seemed horribly empty. There was no little dog hurrying by my window or rushing past the students as they headed to class. Life was way too normal. I threw away the remains of the dog food I had been carrying with me in the car and told myself, It was the best thing. She’s safe now. She was in a good place and that was important. But these reassuring words felt little more than empty. There was no closure. No goodbyes and no way to shore up the vacancy we all were feeling. We had done something almost unthinkable. We had become attached to this little heartbeat of a dog that started out belonging to no one and ended up residing in all our thoughts and prayers.
While she was taken to a foster home in Atlanta to be spayed, groomed, and given all her shots in preparation for adoption, we remained in Toccoa trying to imagine our days without her. What would we talk about when we saw one another? Work? That wouldn’t do. She had brought us together and now we were left on our own to sort things out.
Last week, a twist of fate and an act of God brought her back to us—not to live as she did before—but to live with three other dogs in a wonderful home overlooking a small lake. Last night I did something I never thought I would do. I took her photo. I reached out and stroked her face, rubbed her chin, and told her how beautiful she is. So if anyone ever tries to tell you that dreams do not come true, don’t believe him. They really, really do . . . .
