Happy Gotcha Day!

 






It’s been two years since we took two stray dogs off a major highway and put them in our home.  Now Reese and Roscoe are part of the family.  And there is no doubt that even with all of the chewed furniture, gnawed shoes, and beat down backyard trails, our house has been a happier place.  Now there’s more laughter than there’s been in a while.  Even with their quirks, these dogs have come to love us as much as we love them.  We have found they love people, and are especially good with my two grandkids. 

In honor of this occasion, I’m going to re-post the first blog post I wrote about them just a couple of days after we rescued them. Hope you enjoy it again. Happy Gotcha Day everyone! 

Stray No More - originally posted On March 26, 2019
 
On a two lane highway headed back from Smith Lake, my son spotted them.  A black and white bird dog mix with a terrier as his running mate.  They were dirty, stinky, skittish dogs. Not a collar between them. It was obvious they had missed a few meals.  One of them had a dime sized tick below her eye. Normally curs like this elicit a collective sigh, and are forgotten by the next mile marker.  Not today.  Not when the black and white one could have been the brother of my beloved, departed bird dog Precious. Rilynne, my insightful, 7 year old granddaughter recognized this fact, and issued a command.  “Dad! You have to turn around!  That dog looks just like Precious!   We have to show him to Granddaddy!”  A tap on the brakes, a three point turn, and within 5 minutes, I’m getting a FaceTime message of a girl playing chase with two nasty pups.  In another two hours they would be in my back yard getting all the love and hamburger meat they can lap up.  Strays no more, but well on their way to becoming members of my family.
 
So it’s good bye clean house.  Hello dog fur and carpet accidents.  That’s OK with me.  I’m a dog person. In many cases, I prefer dogs to people.  Consequently, it was no surprise to my friends how hard I took the loss of my last two dogs, Precious and Bugsy.  Even though it’s been almost 2 years, the wound still hasn’t healed.  On several occasions I swore I would never have dogs again, because I already had the pet loves of my life.  People told me to get over it and get two more – there are so many that needed rescuing.  
 
So I guess it was time.  I wasn’t ready, but they were.  And 24 hours ago on the side of Highway 257 between Curry and Jasper, Alabama, it happened.  They found me.  
 
This morning I heard the Powerball lottery is up to $700 million.  But yesterday, two dogs hit a lottery ticket worth more than that to them.  And I probably did too.




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