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A call came in early in the summer about a pitiful brown and white dog hovering around the perimeter of a construction site near U.S. 23 and U.S. 30. No one could get near it, even with the choicest of vittles – steak, sausage, gravy, and biscuits had to be tossed several feet toward the dog and only if it thought it was a safe distance from people, would it snatch the food and run away. The poor dog wandered that area for months, surviving on scraps of food.

After hundreds of calls from concerned motorists and business owners, and after many unsuccessful trips by our staff members, only occasionally seeing the dog, we realized it was just too terrified to come near people. We took a live, humane dog trap to the area and baited it with many kinds of food, but it was too afraid of even that. By this time, it wasn’t desperately hungry since caring people at nearby restaurants were leaving food out for it day and night. Two women were going out once or twice a day to be sure the dog had adequate food and water, but we had no idea where or if it was going to stay dry in the rain. Our Administrator stopped each day on her way to and from work, hoping to find the dog safe in the trap. To add to the misery, the dog was wearing an electronic anti-bark collar. Late in the summer, one of the women feeding the dog each day managed to get a hold of the collar, but when the dog yelped in fear, the collar sent a visible electric shock through the animal, startling the kind woman, who let go so the shocking would stop. Of course, after that, shocking pain was associated with humans in the dog’s mind and no one was ever able to get close again.

Months of futile attempts went by and the calls kept coming in – sometimes by law enforcement, but mostly from people passing by in their cars who told us of a pathetic, skinny brown and white dog wandering in the parking lots of the fast food restaurants. The trap wasn’t working, no matter where we set it. Our staff members had crawled on the ground, laid in parking lots making squeaky noises, and had trudged through ankle-deep mud in wet fields trying to get closer to the dog. Our directors had spent hours trying to come up with the perfect plan to catch the dog so that it could be brought to the shelter, cleaned up, checked by our vets and hopefully adopted. If not adopted, he probably would have lived out his days here as one of the several permanent residents, because he so touched our hearts. We wanted to teach him that humans could be kind, and that someone out there really cared about him.

We had just developed a plan to lace food with sedatives on the porch of a private home the dog frequented each morning. We were going to follow him until he fell asleep and bring him back to the shelter for immediate attention. The gentleman who owned the house had watched the pathetic dog come onto his porch day after day, and said if we could catch the dog he wanted to adopt him and give him a good life, but he also had never been able to get near him.

We had always wondered at the ability of the dog to so frequently cross such a busy street without being hit by a vehicle. His luck ran out on the morning of Wednesday, November 8, 2006. The Highway Patrol called and told us that a dog was hit. We knew immediately who it was. We had vets standing by, and we immediately dispatched our rescue van with two of our most experienced animal rescuers, but by the time they got there the dog was dead. From the extent of his injuries, it was apparent that he had been killed instantly.

We so wanted to rescue this dog, remove the terrible collar, give him a safe place to rest, and show him the love he so deserved. He is no longer suffering or scared; he won’t have to survive the cold winter alone, hungry and frightened. But selfishly we mourn his loss, and the loss of our chance to console a pitiful life. We wanted to give him so much, but as with people sometimes set on their own self-destruction, it just didn’t happen.

As an added note, when he was hit, the bark collar that had previously seemed firmly attached was not on the dog. We can only assume that some well-intended, but misguided person, found the dog in the trap, removed the collar and let him go because of some sort of misunderstanding about his fate if he came to the humane society. If that happened, unfortunately, that person was directly responsible for the dog’s tragic end.

We felt we should share the story so that the many concerned people who have contacted us would know the outcome, however sad, of this lost dog’s saga. The only reason the Humane Society exists is to prevent or relieve the kind of suffering experienced by this dog. We are a volunteer organization with no funding except donations and the dedication of our volunteers. We are here because we care.