Another Happy Ending

Today I got a strange call. I was working in the South part of the county, in one of the not so great parts of town. The report was for an injured dog. Reported as a dog being stabbed by the owner and thrown in a dumpster.

I arrived on scene and made contact with three people. One was the calling party (CP), the other two reportedly were the ones who witnessed the dog being thrown in the dumpster. The CP and the woman were trying to both talk to me as I got out to check the dog over. The woman was telling me how the dog owner was saying that he was going to kill the dog. Then she said that he tried to put the dog in a trash can but she told him that she didn't want to see any of that and he needed to go somewhere else. But, she added she felt bad. She said she was scared, because he is a gang member. She described him and said he had on a red bandanna. She didn't see the dog get stabbed.

I examined the dog and found that other than a few small punctures on his left front foreleg, he seemed to be in pretty good shape. He was such a sweetie pie too. He didn't fuss or flinch when I picked him up and put him on my truck. I examined the wounds closer. They didn't look like stab wounds at all. They really looked more like dog bite wounds. Like another dog bit him. He didn't have any other marks on him. I gave him a couple "cookies" and settled him in.

I returned to the CP and witnesses. I was trying to get further details from the witnesses. I also needed them to give me statements in order to have a case. Well the CP didn't see anything, he was just the one that made the call. The woman, suddenly claimed that she didn't see anything because she was now "asleep" in the back of her boyfriend's SUV while he was fixing it. The boyfriend, who spoke no english, according the the woman didn't want to get involved. She could give a description of the guy, but since they, she and her boyfriend, frequent this particular area, they didn't want any trouble.

I told her that without witness statements, there wasn't much I could do other that get the dog seen by a vet. She still wasn't willing to give a statement. She asked couldn't I just have the guy arrested. Without something to base it on, No.

I was done.

I wasn't going to waste anymore time trying to convince her to do the right thing and the dog needed to get out of there. The CP was just glad that I was taking the dog to get it help.

So I left. I drove around for a few minutes to see if I saw anyone matching the description. Nope.

The dog wasn't in too back of shape so I was able to finish another couple priority calls in the area. One was for an injured duck and another was another injured dog. The duck was definitely injured. Two broken legs. The other dog was a tiny FAT chihuahua with a mammary cyst. My last call was for a tiny kitten who also turned out to be sick.

Well, I finally got to the shelter and got everyone unloaded. My "stabbed" pitty behaved so well. Even when I was putting him away, he showed no aggression towards any of the other dogs. He had great manners.

I put him in the Medical Ward so the vet could take a look at him the next morning. I had a Senior Officer take a look at him and she agreed that he wasn't in dire need of medical treatment right away, otherwise I would have transported him to the ER vet. She also agreed that his wounds looked more like dog bites than stab wounds.

Why would someone make stab wounds on the foreleg where it's mostly bone? The injuries just didn't jive.

So later when I finally got home, I did my usual browsing Craigslist Lost and Found. And the above picture jumped out at me.

This was my Sweetie Pie Pitty! I read the details and looked up the lost location and compared it with where I picked him up. Less than a mile!

Despite it being 10pm at night I called the number of the owner.

I had obviously woke him up, but once I explained who I was and why I was calling he got excited. I told him all about the circumstances and the injuries. He was just glad that he was now safe and he would be coming home. He told me his daughters have been praying for the 5 days he has been missing and some miracle would bring their dog home.

I was happy that I could provide that miracle.

Sweetie Pie Pitty will be going home as soon as the kennels open up so that he can go home to his girls.

I love happy endings.