There really are junkies out there who watch too many dog rescue videos. You know the routine: weepy, sentimental tear-jerkers, with soft solo piano music playing in the background. So I can be forgiven for eagerly responding to a brown hound dog who was walking up a 2000' hill that I had just driven down.
My first instinct, as a lifelong bicyclist, was to keep him out of traffic. He didn't have a collar. I was surprised by how tight his eye contact with me was. (He was a hunting dog, not a border collie.) Then he looked right at me and did the lip-smacking trick that my own dog does at home when she thinks it's time for dinner.
My instinct was to get a bowl of water down, first. But he wasn't interested. Using an extra dog leash I fashioned a loop to go over his head. I brought him to the back of the van and opened a can of pinto beans -- fortunately they had pop-tops. He was very thin, but otherwise healthy-acting. He wolfed down the can of beans in less than a minute.
I put him in the back of the van and tried to find the animal shelter in town. It wasn't working well. When I opened the side doors on my van, he slipped out of the loop and took off running. He wouldn't come back.
There's gratitude for you. It was the difference between fact and (You Tube) fiction. Ah well, I now have a mouse-proof container with some dog food in it, in the van, as well as a better loop if this should happen again.
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