How We Wound Up With a Rescue Dog

“Let’s pop in to the rescue shelter, hon,” my wife proposed, “it’s been there now, as I recall, for close to seven months, And I got scolded pretty good by you-know-who last week when I confessed neither of us had been there even once. “She’s big on rehabilitating slightly injured animals, and has a heart the size of Texas when it comes to dogs - And...like she says…‘It ain’t like those who’re being abused or starving show up in the want ads - or in Sear’s catalogs!’ “The dachshund that I had when I was young was really sweet, and you bring up your fam’ly’s Cocker Spaniel all the time, They make a great companion, as you know, for older folks, and neither you nor I, by any stretch, are in our prime. “Whadaya say,” she stayed on point, “both of us love dogs...it’s only about a mile away, and we’ve got time to kill?” “Not a bad idea,” I quipped, “it’s true - we both love dogs - and if we spot a project that we’d like to buy, we will! “More than half our neighbors have a dog - a few have two - and every time I see one strolling past it tweaks my mind, So, I’m with you, dear...popping in to look around can’t hurt, and - like you say - we’ve plenty of time...and who knows what we’ll find?” Thirty minutes later we were filling out the paper work to buy ourselves the weakest St. Bernard we’d ever seen, And, to this day, we can’t believe how any human being with any brains - or heart - at all can be so cruel - so mean! Roughly three years old, she could have passed for barely one! Her spine and ribs on full display, from seldom being fed, The owner of the shelter claimed that...had she not been taken...based upon her vital signs she’d ‘ve very soon been dead! They’d rescued her from an old X-con whose neighbor’d turned him in for locking her in a tiny cage whenever he’d leave town, With no arrangements whatsoever made for what she’d need, and often threatening - when she’d whine for food, to - “put her down”! Warned that - if he caught him on his land, or if his cameras offered him the proof he’d need - he’d whined up being sued… The guy who’d turned him in had been afraid to make the call. But after several failed attempts to somehow get her food, He found, at last, the courage to report the starving dog. The shelter doesn’t tell the ones they take their projects from Whom it was that turned them in for how they treat their victims, and even though too often it’s “the end of the line” for some… That deprived and barely-breathing, long-neglected dog wound up going home with US, and...as you’ve guessed by now… After thirty days with us, it makes us proud to say...if Brandy’s legs were longer, you’d mistake her for a COW!