My husband and I had been talking about adding a fourth dog for quite a while. We had gone back and forth and back and forth, and had actually decided not to add a new dog at this time. Of course, we were thinking about a Border Collie, or Border Collie mix, and were planning to adopt through rescue.
On New Years Eve, I was driving us home from church, and Ben suddenly said, "Look out - there's a dog!" I didn't even see him at first, but then there he was - a small dog meandering up the road, in my lane. Of course, there was a car coming in the other direction, but that person got over enough for me to just manage to squeeze by the dog.
At that point, the dog ran off the road into someone's yard.
We stopped, hoping that we would be able to catch the dog, and that he would have ID. He was super easy to catch. We called to him and he stopped and let us approach. Just to be safe, we looped Ben's belt around the dog's collar and led him to the car, and he got right in.
At first we were very happy - he had a tag. And then . . . it turned out to be a rabies tag. That was it. No ID. No address. No way to figure out where he belonged.
It wasn't terribly late, but it was dark and nobody was around outside in the area.
So, we took him home, knowing that we would probably have to hold him until Monday, when we could call the vets office to see if they could hook us up with his owner.
We could tell that he was a little Beagle mix of some sort, and he seemed to be young. Not a baby puppy - we guessed about one or two years old.
We got him home and put him in a crate with some food and water, and put the ex-pen around it to keep our dogs back away from him.
He stunk to high heaven. It wasn't a horrible smell - he smelled like a farm. But in the house it was strong, so we ended up giving him a bath, which was no problem.
By this time we could tell he was friendly, and pretty compliant. He didn't try to bite, or fight us in any way. I am not sure that he had ever been in a crate in his life, but he put up with sitting in there, near the space heater, while he dried off.
The boys seemed curious about him, and Tessa acted like she would like to get in there to bite his head off!! Tessa has never taken well to new dogs coming into our house.
Ben really took to him. Before long, Ben was carrying him around, and holding him, and taking him out when he needed to go. By the time Monday rolled around, the little dog - who was completely nameless to us at that point - was like "Ben's little dog"!!
I had a Freestyle practice at the training building on that Monday morning. I planned to call the vets office and see if I could get the owners info. I told Ben that I would give his number to the owner and have them call him to make arrangements to get him back.
I did call the vets office, and they told me that they would get in touch with the owners and have them call me. Several minutes later, I got a phone call. The woman on the other end said, "I hear you have our dog!"
Since I was on my way to the building, I gave her Ben's number so she could work out the dog's return with him directly.
When I got home, I was in for a surprise. Ben had spoken with the woman's husband and he had asked if we wanted to keep him!
We talked about it, very briefly. We knew right away that we did want to keep him. We called them back and made arrangements to buy him for a very reasonable fee, mostly to make it official.
It turns out that he is a mix between a Beagle and a Smooth Fox Terrier. He is about two years old. He ran loose on their farm and slept in a shed on the property. He is very friendly and loves children. And his name was Buddy.
The owners were having a difficult time keeping Buddy from running off. They tried tethering him, but he did not like it (knowing him now, I am sure he screamed bloody murder on a tether!), so they continued to allow him to run free. They were concerned that he would eventually get hit by a car, which, of course, is what almost happened!
And so, we now have a "Beagle Terrier"! He has presented his share of challenges, but we really do love the little stinker!
How could anyone not love this face?
We changed his name to "Rocket", but soon changed that to "Rocky"
This is very typical Rocky!!
He is, especially, Ben's dog!
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