With a heavy heart, I went on home, put some dog food in a shoebox and carried it back to the vicinity I had last seen her. I hoped she would find it the next day.
I didn’t see her the next day or two, but couldn’t get the haunting image of her out of my mind for I knew she was suffering. We were having a very unusual cold spell for our area; the temperature was falling into the low teens at night and no warmer than twenty degrees in the daytime.
A day or two later, my husband was looking out the glass door toward the lake behind our house. All at once, he exclaimed, “I think I just saw a deer run behind the storage building. They sure are getting brave. Boy, it was really moving!” Immediately, I knew it was the dog, for I remembered my first impression. I told him it must be the stray dog I had seen a couple of days ago.
My heart thumping with excitement at a second chance to rescue her, I grabbed some bacon on the stove left from breakfast, went outside and started calling softly in the “baby talk” that dogs respond to. “Here doggie, here doggie. Want something to eat, baby?” Now that poor baby was starving to death, and the smell of that bacon was more than she could stand. Even though she was trembling violently, (don’t know which was worst for her, the fear or the cold), her hunger overcame her fear and she started crawling on her belly inch by inch toward my outstretched hand and the food. Of course, I was encouraging her every inch of the way with my soothing voice.
She practically inhaled the bit of food I had offered her. Calling to my husband to bring some dog food, I started petting her even though it wasn’t pleasant touching her rough skin. I wanted her to know she had found a friend.
I had two or three dogs that were family pets and lived inside the home, but this dog was as big as a horse! Well, almost! She was the tallest dog I had ever seen when she was standing on her hind feet. I’m 5′6″ and her nose reached my ears!
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