It’s a funny thing how we dogs find our humans. Most of my human’s pets found our house all by themselves, just wandering through, since we live out in the country.
But I came from the city. I was living by a Dumpster in Fort Lauderdale when somebody took me to a shelter. My mom found me on the internet. She calls it online dog dating. She says she liked my profile.
I have a couple of island dogs who live with Linda Badgley on Live Oak in Central Beach. She found a dog on the internet, but on a site he wasn’t supposed to be on: Craig’s List. Linda saw the listing when she was out in California visiting her daughter last year. “$100 or best offer.”
“That isn’t even allowed,” thought Linda, and she decided she’d better rescue that dog before it ended up in a bad home, or a home he wasn’t allowed in, which was where he was right then. When she drove over to see him, he was curled up in a laundry basket, a tiny yorkie-chihuahua that somebody had left in this guy’s apartment. “What’s your best offer?” she asked. He said, ”$100.” I guess he said it in his best voice, because she didn’t make an offer back. She paid him the $100 and took little Opie home.
Then last summer, a friend here in Vero was taking care of some dogs from someone who had way, way too many. One was a white poodle, Bailey, who’d been living in a cage for a whole year. “He wouldn’t talk, he wouldn’t eat, he was just this poor little thing,” Linda says. “I told her he could sleep at my house until they found a home for him.”
Linda’s grandkids were visiting, and she thought they’d have fun with a visiting dog. But when they brought the poodle home, he was terrified of everyone. All except for Sabrina, Linda’s little granddaughter. After all that little dog had been through, Sabrina somehow hit the spot, and he hit the spot with her. Sabrina loved him so much she pulled her bed into the kitchen with him. “She slept with his head on her neck,” Linda says.
Obviously she had to take him to California. So Linda went back for another dog. This time, she brought home a puppy named Mollie, a poodle but with straight hair. Mollie and Opie are inseparable, she says.
Linda makes up birthdays for all her adopted dogs so she can have a party and celebrate. I wonder if she shops for their presents on line.
Respectfully submitted,
Raven
