Shady

Today’s walk to work was only about three miles. Should have been five miles but I hit this family up for a ride.

I had gone about a half mile this morning and came across a very cute Chinese Sharpe who was sitting on the side of the road. The dog was lying on the ground and shaking. I walked up to it and noticed blood in the snow. I figured it was probably a dog from the neighborhood.

I checked the tag on the dog and found out that its name was Shady. The tag had a phone number so I pulled the pack off and dug out my cell phone. I called the number and shortly a lady answered and I asked if she was missing a dog by the name of Shady. She was like yes, yes where are you? I told her the cross streets and she was like where is that at? I said in Skyway. Where is that at? By Bear Creek Park. That’s when I realized that Shady had traveled a few miles. I asked her if I could call her back, with the thought that I would see if I could get Shady back to the house.

I tried to pickup Shady, but she wasn’t going to have that. She snarled and gave that look. I called the number back and gave her the address of the house that Shady was lying in front off. That’s when she told me that she lived on Research, which is about 10 miles from where I was located. She said that she was on her way.

So here I sat for about 30 minutes, waiting for them to come. All the time, folks from the hood were driving by and looking at me, like what is he doing. I am used to that as people often look at me in that way.

So after 30 minutes I see a green Ford Explorer driving slow down the road. Once they saw me and Shady they whipped across the street and parked. Three people jumped out. Seemed to be a husband and wife with their daughter who I am guessing was about 15/16 years old.

It was a tear fest from the start. Both of the women were crying and came up to the dog to see what her condition was. Once Shady saw who it was she did light up but didn’t move too much.

The father reached down and picked her up and headed back the car. I turned to grab my backpack and when I turned around he was lying flat on his back on the ground. We have had some snow and it was fairly icy. I slipped a few times myself over the last couple of days. I asked if he was OK but he didn’t have much to say, I think he was still catching his breath.

The wife asked me if she could pay me for my time, and I said you know I could really use a ride as I was now late for work. She agreed. So we loaded up Shady into the car. The mother and daughter were still both crying and it was a pretty somber ride.

I tried to lighten the ride by giving them my name. The father had on a Texas Longhorn hat and jacket on, so I asked if they were from Texas. The mom said that they were from Amarillo. I told them I had been there and I bet they were happy to be in Colorado Springs.

When we reached 8th street and the stop light I thanked them for the ride and jumped out. She offered to pay me again and I declined and said that I was just happy that I could help.

I assume that Shady was OK, she didn’t seem to badly hurt. From what I could tell it was mainly blood from her paws and it looked like a dew claw had been torn.

I snagged a couple of pictures of her from the phone.