Today I was walking from the courthouse to my office. To do that I have to cut through the sheriff's office parking lot. As I was going through I saw this dog running around barking and howling. I saw it had a collar with tags on it, but it wouldn't let me come close enough to get to the tags. So I called the humane society to come and get it.
Well, I waited in the lot because I didn't want the dog to run out in the road and I wanted to keep an eye on it to point it out to the animal control people. The whole time the dog would just bark and howl at me if I tried to get close. I finally sat down on the curb and ignored it. After about 45 minutes (yes, I sat in the lot for like an hour) she finally came up and sniffed my back. She let me pet her and as soon as I did that she was totally friendly. She was just so scared before. Oh, her eyes we also super crusted up - like she probably could only see out of one eye which I'm sure didn't help her fear.
So, I check her collar and call the number on it. I'm like "did you lose your dog?" and the lady is like "maybe. let me call my husband." He calls back and get this: He's a long haul trucker who lives in Vancouver WA (not close to Seattle) and he made a delivery to the sheriff's office way earlier this morning. She travels with him and she must have jumped out of the truck cab when he unloaded. He totally thought she was asleep under the covers on the bed in the truck with his other dog! He was about an hour away when I talked to him. So he unhitched his trailer and drove his big ass semi cab back to my office to get her.
While we were waiting, I called a coworker who has a leash in her office and she brought it out. We took her into our office and I cleaned up her eyes. I guess her tear ducts don't work so she gets really goopy. She chilled in my office with a blanket and a fresh pig's ear (don't ask why we keep this stuff in our office). She was happy to see her dad and her other dog friend.
Point of the story: I could NOT do what TammyB does. I was SO in love with her after 5 minutes I didn't want to give her back. For real, I was sad the rest of the day because I just wanted to take her home with me. Tammy - I don't know how you are so strong!!! You absolutely AMAZE me with what you do for those puppies.