In the summer of 2006, our two-year-old cat had to be put down due to cancer.
Feeling unable/un-ready to go home after it was over, my husband and I took the dog – who was, like our now-deceased cat, a rescue animal (I have spent a lifetime rescuing animals and cannot abide people who abuse or abandon them) – and headed for the hills.
Literally, the hills. We drove first to the (foot)hills, then just… kept… going…
Eventually we reached a small mountain town with an old fashioned motorists’ lodge — several small studio-style cabins set roughly a quarter acre apart from one another surrounded a main house — and when we stopped, the stout taciturn owner said “Certainly do” when we asked whether she had one of those cabins available for the night.
She was happy (‘happy’ might be putting too fine a point on it; in actuality her expression was more along the lines of ‘less-scowly’) to allow the dog to stay with us (which was, of course, the only option we had — if she’d turned us away, we would’ve had a long drive home), warning only to “watch out for bears” when we took Lil Miss Pup out for a walk.
The first walk came later in the evening, when – having driven further north – we walked the dog around the still-snowy (in July!) landscape surrounding an alpine lake.
On our return drive, headed back to the cabin, I spotted out my passenger-side window the form of an animal loping alongside the road. Only its backside was in my line of vision, but upon seeing the wagging tale my heart lurched. I told my husband to slow the car and prepared to get out, thinking, “Some sonofabitch has has abandoned their dog up here!” (I am a Rescuer of Animals, remember)…
And then, as I was opening up my car door…
The ‘dog’ turned around.
Continue reading
