Take Home Stray Dog? No! Maybe
Let's hope her owners come forward, or that her "finder" adopts her. Very lucky dog, being picked up by someone who works for the New York Times. Not every lost dog gets her picture in the paper.
From the New York Times.
Take Home Stray Dog? No! Maybe
By ROBIN FINN
Published: April 6, 2008
East Northport
WAITING FOR THE RIGHT HOMES John Dowling, left, with Pearl, and John Thompson with Angel. Phil Marino for The New York Times
IT was late afternoon on Easter, and no, this was not a cartoon apparition: wet, shivering and obviously not out for a holiday romp, the big, blond terrier, straight out of central casting for the Sandy role in “Annie,” materialized in the middle of the beach causeway. The holiday traffic, mercifully sparse, inched carefully by. Then we, driver and dog, made eye contact. She didn’t blink first. Nor did she skulk away. She stared. Hopefully.
There was no humane recourse except to stop the car, check her collars (she wore two, initially an auspicious sign) for tags and return her to her rightful owner. The disruption to the finder’s afternoon plans would be minor, and a good deed would be done: St. Francis would have loved it.
The trouble was, her collars bore no identification tags. Not a good sign. The traffic continued to inch by; everyone gawked, but no one screeched to a halt to claim her. That would turn out to be just the beginning of the finder’s wishful thinking. So into the car the foundling went. She instantly traded the backseat for the front, offered her paw and off we drove to the local police station, where, it seemed reasonably certain, someone might have phoned about an AWOL mutt.
But no one had. And sorry, she couldn’t stay at the police station until someone did: because of a previous biting incident, it was against the rules to let her inside. Would her finder take her home until the owners discovered her missing and phoned the station, which the two officers on duty felt confident would transpire by nightfall?
Tempting, but not realistic. The finder already had a shaggy blond foundling ensconced at home — by coincidence a pared-down adoptee version of this charming wayward mutt, but antisocial to the max.
The officer on patrol duty found a chain, secured the dog to a signpost and provided a bowl of water; then protocol took over. The Town of Huntington Animal Shelter and Adoption Center was notified, and John Dowling, a retired dog groomer who used to show collies and Bichons and now beautifies incarcerated strays, drove the foundling to the pound in the canine paddy wagon. He, too, seemed sure her owners would be in touch. “She’s a nice, big, friendly dog,” he said.
But the owners weren’t in touch on Easter night, nor did they call Monday morning (only her finder did), nor did they reach out anytime over the ensuing week.
“Even I’m starting to give up hope,” Mr. Dowling said one afternoon when her finder, who developed a guilty crush on this pooch, paid her daily visit to the pound armed with affection, the dog’s first preference, and large Milk-Bones, her second.
Mr. Dowling, a bit of a soft touch, could not be tapped as a potential adopter. He has four dogs at home, the town limit: “A big, smelly bloodhound and a Doberman puppy, both difficult to place, so I adopted them, and then I inherited a papillon and a Chihuahua from a friend who died. A full house.”
On March 31, Inmate No. 102, unofficially renamed Pearl by her finder, officially became the unclaimed property of the town and, pending the completion of temperament testing, available for adoption. Her finder’s name and number are at the top of the list of Pearl’s potential adopters, just in case — perish the thought — no other dog lover claims her.
The Huntington Animal Shelter is not a no-kill shelter: last year it took in 530 dogs and euthanized 71, roughly half of them old or sick animals surrendered by their owners, the other half unwanted. Enough said.
The shelter, which has concrete runs for 60 dogs but no indoor kennels, is currently occupied by 24 dogs, about 15 of which are ready for adoption (www.petfinder.org, ZIP code 11731). Charlie, a homely brown pit bull with an earnest attitude, is not the oldest dog in the place; that’s probably Angel the Chihuahua, who, unlike Charlie, has a Beware of Dog sign on her cage. But he claims seniority: he’s been waiting for a home since last June, slightly longer than Angel.
“I hold onto my dogs,” said John Thompson, the shelter’s supervisor, who has two dogs, three cats and a rabbit (he found it in the road near his home in Patchogue). “I’m not going to put down a dog I believe is a good dog. Sometimes I’ll ask myself, ‘Am I doing the right thing by keeping this dog so long?’, but I truly believe there is somebody out there who will adopt that dog eventually.”
That’s how he wound up with Dakota, a coon hound, and Rebel, a beagle; both were surrendered (the phrase “dumped at the shelter” is dismissed by shelter employees as politically/compassionately incorrect) by frustrated owners who deemed them overly aggressive. So was tiny Angel, who sleeps on a pink throw rug. She’s a biter who has developed a tolerance for Mr. Thompson and Mr. Dowling but terrorizes the rest of the staff.
“I say there’s someone for every dog,” Mr. Thompson said, “but I’m starting to think I’m going to have to take Angel home.”
Inmate No. 102 and her fellow travelers deserve the same.
E-mail: theisland@nytimes.com
