How to save a life

Today we saved someone's life. Not kidding. Well, not literally, but kind of literally. My husband and I are in a co-ed fraternity known to many as "dog ownership." It's a very tightknit, respectful family, especially in Tulsa. We go to dog parks, dog-friendly places, and on dog walks and are always met with the caring, smiling faces of other responsible dog owners. 

Today our fraternity went into crisis mode.

Lady is a 2-year old Australian shephard with a sugar-sweet demeanor and flair for adventure. Maybe she wanted to build a snowman, maybe she wanted to catch snowflakes, but when we found her in today's BLIZZARD in the Reasor's parking lot she just looked frozen solid and scared to death. We weren't the only people who saw her. Another lady my age was heading Lady's direction at the same time. 

By the time we got to her, the other woman had already checked for tags. No name. No address. No phone number. I made the instantaneous decision, as many other people would, that we were adopting another dog. There was no way this sweet dog was going to become a pupcicle on my watch and I surely wasn't taking her to the pound. We looked at her tags again, however, and saw that under her Rabies tag, she did have a little yellow tag from a company called Home Again. There was a 1-888 number on the tag.

We called the number and were patched through to their dispatch. We learned Lady's name and breed and that she had been reported missing for about an hour. Dispatch located the owner's phone number and patched us through. We were greeted by the voice of a very emotional, and very relieved older lady. She told us she was on her way.

I love that you can tell so much about a person by meeting their dog. When Lady's owner arrived, there were tears streaking her face, her eyes were swollen and red, and Lady couldn't have wiggled that tail more if she wanted to. It was quite obvious to us that Lady was all this little old lady had, and that she was all Lady had as well. It was a heartfelt reunion that made us feel thankful to be part of such an amazing unspoken fraternity. We saved a dog from a blizzard today, but we also saved the owner as well. You could see it on her face, and you could see it on ours.

I love dogs.