Meet Lucy

When it rains, it pours even in the desert. I am an animal person but primarily a dog person. I have been back in Arizona for nearly three years and up until 2 months ago my solitary pet was Suki, a 6 pound silver tabby cat.

Suki

Though not entirely in my budget, I started really thinking about a dog a few months ago after my bike was stolen from my front porch in the middle of the night. Suki proved to be a poor watchcat even though she spends 80% of her life looking out the security screen on the front door. I felt very vulnerable living alone and knowing people were creeping around my yard in the dark and started watching craigslist for a likely sounding companion. I came close to adopting a bullmastiff but was not entirely comfortable in the amount of control that would be required. It didn't help that the photo the guy sent me of the mastiff's "father" was actually a photo of a female grand champion snagged off of flicker. Something just felt off and I passed on the whole thing.

I had been terribly disapointed that a dog had not found me yet as strays usually just make their way into my life at random. This was the case with my last two dogs, who still reside in New York with my ex as they were too big to fit under the seat in front of me on a 747. Dante' was a "free" puppy in a box outside the grocery store who tricked us with his tiny paws and grew up to be a modest 70 pounds.  To this day I still want to do a DNA test on him as we have no idea what he is with his hazel eyes, long legs, and floppy ears.

Dante'

Rue came into my life in New York and was an abused dog that had been left behind by an equally abused woman. Her owner had the chance to take a bus to another state and escape her situation and Rue was left with the family of the boy that cut our grass from time to time. The boy showed up at our door knowing we had a dog and a large fenced yard with this skinny, flea infested, timid golden retriever mix asking if Dante' would like a friend. The two got along and so began our adventure with the every escaping, ever rolling in stinky stuff, sweet as honey Rue Bunny.

Rue

So still being dogless, on a whim I thought I would check the local pound which is still functioning as a kill shelter. We have several great no-kill groups in the area struggling help but the budget for the county run shelter is nowhere near adequate and their max capacity is somewhere under 100 animals at best guess.  That leaves any dog or cat picked up by animal control at risk of being put down.  I talked my aunt into coming along as a voice of reason since I am a bleeding heart and easily swayed by emotions, though in retrospect so is she. To make a long story short, since he deserves his own post anyway, by the time we left 3 hours later I had ownership papers for what I had been told was a 2 year old shepherd mix named Rambo that I could pick up from the vet in 2 days after he was neutered.

Dugan

Anyway that tangent aside, fast forward 2 months, life with Rambo, who was immediately renamed to Dugan, was going along just fine. I had discovered that he was more around 10 months old and Belgian Malinois rather than German Shepherd. The cat had finally stopped trying to scratch his eyes out, his training was a breeze, and we had a fun daily schedule of walks and trips to the dog park. I was very happy that my lucky shelter dog was proving to be very smart and very good and life had settled back down into a nice pattern.
Then came Lucy.


My parents live in a box canyon on 100 acres that is oddly located in the middle of town. They are only a couple thousand feet from old route 66 down a short dirt road and get all sorts of odd animal visitors you would not expect in a modestly populated area. Deer, elk, fox, owls, coyote all pass through. We have also had trouble with feral dogs over the years losing much of our poultry and lifestock to attacks when I was in high school and college, so the occational dog sighting is nothing new though they are rarely friendly. So I was not highly surprised to pull onto the blacktop from my parents place and see a small dog wandering in the street not far from the busy 5 lane highway. Ever an optomist, I pulled over and got out of the truck and called over to the little thing and was surprised when she ran right up to me. It only took a small amount of coaxing and she was laying upside down on my foot so I scooped her up and climbed back in the truck.

She was dusty but well fed and had no collar so off we went to the nearest vets office to get scanned for a microchip. While standing in the waiting room I found several cactus spines in her legs and shoulders then the tech noticed that she also had cactus in her tounge. Suddenly my good deed was starting to look costly and with bags of groceries in the truck already, my bank account was drained. The tech talked to the vet in charge and they agreed to give it a quick try, if the little dog behaved and removing the tounge cactus was simple there would be no charge. Thank goodness for small favors, the cactus removal took seconds and I was spared having to figure out how to pay an unexpected vet fee. The microchip scan brought up nothing and I was headed home with a wee small guest who was actively taking turns between climbing behind my back and trying to eat the packages of raw chicken that were in bags on the passenger seat.

After more cactus removal with a handy pair of tweezers, a bath, dinner and a lot of water (followed shortly by a lot of peeing on my floor as being house broken would have been too much to ask) the guest was bouncing all over the place and I was digging out the big camera and flash to try and get her picture for my "found dog" ads as a couple dozen blurred cellphone attempts proved a complete failure.

Finally I had a reasonable, if mildly blurry photo and sat down to post notices and make fliers with an exausted baby girl asleep on my lap and thoughts of what have I gotten myself into now...

Lucy

Posted in: Pets