FOUND DOG!!!!!

Yeeaaaahhhhh!!! Stella has been found!

Day four of the mysterious case of the missing Stella began with me trying to figure out how to get my computer to talk to my printer again. They had been estranged for some time and I really needed them to reconcile so I could print some more pictures of Stella to spread around the area. Just as I sat to begin, the phone rang. "Are you missing a dog?" was the first thing I heard from the voice on the other end. "Yes" I was and described the pooch to the lady on the other end. "Well I have your dog at my house". Glory be and thanks to all the powers that led to that line!!! Stella had been removed from the lost category to the found status.

The lady, Janet, said that she found Stella wandering beside the road  a ways past Mosely's store and the ball park at the school, about a mile from the interstate. She said she picked her up because she had terriers and felt like this dog belonged to someone even though Stella wasn't wearing a collar and tags. She also said her husband told her she absolutely could not keep another dog but she wanted to take it home to try to find the owner, and so she did. Janet said Stella was very hungry, duh, and she fed her. This morning her husband made a stop at Mosely's Store and saw the poster I had put up there several days ago, next to the other missing pups and ponies, called her and she called me. Relief does not adequately cover it all, nor is thank you enough to say to this nice person who cared enough about a dog to pick it up before it got run over wandering in a place it was unfamiliar with.

From where she said she picked the hitch hiker up, Stella had to have covered serious distance to get there. Mud is crusted on her belly from an obvious creek crossing or two, and was muddy last night so the creek crossing was late yesterday sometime. We are talking about several miles of very rugged  swamp land and creek crossings with steep banks and cypress knees that she covered on those short little legs and to get there she had to cross a very large field of very tall grass, thick, and stringy, not a terrier favorite thing to do. She was limping a bit when I went to the lady's house to get her, most likely an aggravation of her old ligament issue on a hind, but she was happy to see me and happy to climb in the truck. Right now she is waddling around the kitchen looking for more scraps of food that Gracie has missed. She is also quite thirsty. She does not look to have lost any of her circumference so she either found some food to snack on or lived on her ample reserves and just isn't showing the effects.  But she is back, and that is what matters in a all's well that ends well scenario. I think I can breathe again.

Stella will get her bath in a bit, but  this will happen down in the wash rack in the barn cause she surely will clog up the sink with the load of dirt she is carrying. Then later I will take her into town to her yard where she can go hide in her garage, in her lounge chair, and dream about her big walkabout.

It does restore my faith that there are folks out there who make a difference and pay attention to the animals in the world and notice when something is wrong and do something about it. Stella is a lucky dog to have been found by such a caring person, and I am lucky on this one to be able to return her to her home. Hopefully she will live out her days from here on out with a bit less drama and live to a comfortable old age.

Welcome home the wanderer. Stella is back!!!






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