Sandy

I did my good deed for today.

Driving home from work, a dog ran out in front of my car. She (I think) was a young golden retriever or retriever mix. I saw on the other side of the road was a cop chasing her down, so I decided to turn in and try to help him catch this dog. She was very skittish and nervous. At first, she stayed about 5 feet from me. I was just trying to keep her calm and make sure she doesn't run more or go back into the busy street.

So then the cop crosses the street and tells me that he found out the dog belongs to the people who own the house whose yard we were in at that moment. It was a run down shack with a shitty fence. The police man knocked on the door while I talked sweetly to the dog and tried to talk her into going into her back yard. When I realized she was terrified to go into her own yard, I knew someone was hurting her.

Well, the man that answered to the police officer's knocks was a drunk Mexican who couldn't speak English despite being in the US for years. He called the dog Sandy. Sandy hated him. Her ears immediately went down with her tail between her legs. The closer her got to her, the faster she ran. I wanted to kill this man.

So she took off down the street and I followed her on foot while the officer got his car and called animal control. He also realized that Sandy was being hurt by this man, so he said that since the dog didn't have a collar and he couldn't understand what the man was saying, he was treating the dog like a stray.

Well, as I was following Sandy, she went into a backyard which was fenced in but had a broken gate, so I stood in the opening and kept her in this random person's back yard. Once Jose (or whatever his name was) was gone (about halfway through the chase for the dog, he lost interest and went back home), Sandy was much calmer and very sweet. I told the cop once he caught up with me that I would gladly take the dog home and put her in my yard or take her to a kill-free shelter where I used to work. He said it was OK with him if it was OK with animal control.

So then animal control came, and the lady told me that since we are treating this dog as a stray, it is their policy to keep it for 9 days so the owners can have a chance to find the dog. After that, it can be euthanized or adopted. Well now I'm in the process of calling shelters to see if they will take the dog. Either way, you can bet that in 9 days I'm going to be at the pound picking up that dog.

Even though Sandy isn't in a good home yet, I'm still glad that she will never be hurt again.