Story by Carl Grover
It can be very traumatic when the family pet goes missing. Anyone who has ever had a pet can probably relate to the anxiety someone feels. If there are children involved it can be even more difficult to deal with.
If the pet has tags with a number to call it might be as simple as someone making that phone call.
Either way, when the minutes turn to hours and the hours turn to days, heartbreak and panic set in.
This was probably the case when, Irish, a 13 year old red and white papillon, went missing on Oct. 2nd at 9:00 p.m.
For a little bitty dog, not even the size of a rabbit, the outside world at night can be a very scary and dangerous place.
However, as luck (of the Irish) would have it, the little fella was found wandering around a little after 10:00pm by a young couple going for a walk.
Blake McGuire and Melissa Vaage gave him shelter for the night where he was introduced to a yellow lab named Chloe.
Chloe might have looked like a giant to little Irish but she’s a gentle giant and the two got along really well. Irish didn’t want to play as much as Chloe though.
I guess that’s the difference between young dogs and old dogs.
It must have felt like a vacation for Irish because the next day, Blake pampered the pooch by giving him a bath and clipping his claws.
How’s that for a dog day afternoon?
It’s pretty lucky indeed that Irish was found by two people who have such a fondness for animals that they volunteer some of their time at the Humane Society of North Iowa as ‘socializers’. Basically, what they do is socialize with the animals by spending time with them and taking them for walks.
Until recently, it never really occurred to me how important that is.
Imagine if you were to sit in a cage all the time with no one to talk to. You might start feeling a little unloved too.
Kudos to Blake and Melissa as well as the Humane Society of North Iowa and all of their volunteers; caring people, it seems, are also a special breed.
This story has an even better ending though.
When Blake took this friendly little toy spaniel for a walk the next day, a neighbor asked if that was the missing dog on the poster. He and Melissa tracked down the poster and took Irish home.
Like the poster said, “the kids miss him”, and although they weren’t home at the time; I’ll bet the surprise of seeing their beloved family pet made them smile, just as much as Irish’ eyes were smiling.
