Monday, March 29, 2010

My Stray Dog...


(Taco doing his early morning stretch. I woke him up for this photo.)
I have a story to tell about stray/lost dogs.

My daughter #1 wrote a post about a stray coming to her house and camping out on her front door foot mat. At the time she was a severely ugly chihuahua, with open sores and losing her hair and her tail was all messed up. She is now a great member of their family.

This story made me think of my experience with a stray chihuahua.

We were spending Easter with some friends in Corpus Christi, Tx.
I was sitting on the grass in the front yard with my plate of BBQ on my lap.
This little chihuahua came up to me and promptly sat down right next to me and put his little head on my knee.

He was horrible looking! I was afraid to even touch him. He was covered from nose to toe with fleas, eggs, dried blood and grease. He was soo skinny and had gunk in his eyes. He seriously looked like he was going to die any day now. He smelt gawd awful!!

I gave him a piece of my sausage, but was still leery of letting him get to close. I did touch him in the effort of pushing him away from my pretty new dress. It was a pretty gross moment, I couldn't finish my plate. Of course I gave it to the dog.

Through out the day he followed me everywhere. I asked everyone I saw at the party or passing by on the street, if they knew the dog or where he came from. Nobody had ever seen him before. From the looks of him, he had been seriously neglected and had been on the streets for some time.

He was a miserable creature and never showed any signs of happiness, the sausage didn't even get a tail wag. Sad sad dog and surely in a lot of pain, physically and emotionally.

That evening after not being able to shake him, I gave him a bath and a bath and a bath. He never once tried to get away from me, he actually liked the bathing. It took many times to get the water to run clear.

He was a gorgeous tan color, you would have never had know it with all the dried blood and black fleas that was on him.

After three days of trying to find his owner and finding none, it was time for us to go home. I had already made up my mind, that we were going to take him home. No way was I going to give him back to the streets. I even if I had tried to leave him there, I don't think he would have obliged me. I had a funny feeling he would have tried to have followed me all the way back to San Antonio!

That was eight yrs ago! He is Taco Bell! The daddy of Chaquita and Stitch. #1 in my herd of three!

(I have tried and tried to post a pic of him, but blogger refuses to upload any pics)

9 comments:

Lucy said... [Reply to comment]

That is so sweet. That dog needed you and he knew you would take care of him. Blogger is behaving altogether different for me and I am about to scream. I would love to see a oicture of him.

Maureen@IslandRoar said... [Reply to comment]

Oh how great that is! He chose you.

Spot said... [Reply to comment]

I'm afflicted with the "let's take in every stray we come across" disease too. That's why we now have 8 cats & a dog. I cannot resist an animal in need and I'm pretty sure there's a flashing neon sign above my head that reads "softie". You rock Heather.

♥Spot

Anonymous said... [Reply to comment]

Well blessings on you for that!

rockygrace said... [Reply to comment]

That is SO NICE! Please post a pic when blogger allows.

kathryn said... [Reply to comment]

Oh! I'm so glad this had the happy ending I was hoping for! I wonder why everyone in your family has chance encounters with Chihuahuas??

Heather said... [Reply to comment]

Lucy...Yes he did and he wasn't about to take no for an answer.

Maureen...Thanks!

Spot...I used to be like that, but over the years I have had to be tough about it.

Heather said... [Reply to comment]

Grace...I was the one who was blessed.

Rocky Grace...Thanks and will do.

Kathryn...LOL! Actually it has only been in the last ten yrs or so, before that we were all big dog people.

Heather said... [Reply to comment]
This comment has been removed by the author.