It was early May, and I saw a young golden lab scampering about next to the Interstate 10 Exit 62 which I take to work. Two weeks ago, I saw another dog, a pug, running free next to the main road to the school, weaving in and out of the street. I can't stop and save these poor creatures because I need to be at work. When you can't make it better, make art. I wrote a little free verse reflection on it, under Prose on Southern Nooks & Crannies & Other Dark Places.
We've come full circle. On 5/25, during the faculty meeting, after the kids had all gone home for the summer, after the principal announced to the staff, "Mrs. B. won't becoming back next year because she is with child," (I stood up to the gratuitous applause and raised both hands in the victory symbol a la Nixon), someone said, "There's a dog running through the hallway." Maybe it was my desire to get out of the faculty meeting but I bolted out of the library, saw the very same pug I had seen just a few days earlier, and scooped him up. "Yeah, you're alive!" Very cute, very friendly, very infested with fleas and God knows what else. I let my dog loving heart get the better of my pregnancy-saftey head. But I wasn't about to send him back out to be peeled off the road. Another teacher was on the mission with me, and she called the local dog catcher while I held the pug and pinched off fleas. Turns out, this dog gets out all the time and the dog catcher knew exactly where he lived (he wasn't neutured of course). The dog catcher had his hands full with a racoon in one cage and a rabid dog in another, so he just told my teacher friend where the dog lived and she walked him home. We were all ready to have her adopt him, and I was ready to drive home living to the closest to school to get him the flea-blitzkrieg pill called capstar, and a leash. But once we discovered he had legitimate owners, he had to be returned. My teacher friend discovered upon walking him home, that the household had 2 pugs, and this wayword runaround stud was the proud pop of 3 pug pups which the family was giving away. My teacher friend traded the grown frisky pug for a docile little pumpkin of a pug. Mind you, we're supposed to be cleaning out our classrooms, but this is far more entertaining. The little puppy was also covered with fleas and had a ringworm. I'm not supposed to be handling any of that. I have a doctor's appt today so I'm crossing my fingers I didn't pass anything on. Even the cute pugs are country dawgs when left to their own machinations and fertilizations. She had him swaddled like a baby and gave him a bath in some Palmolive I had left in my room to remove most of the fleas. He had a sore on his neck where his mom had been biting off the fleas. My teacher friend had already picked out a name for him: Mr. Beauregard, Beau (Bo) for short. This was a name her husband had in mind for their "next dog" (he was not yet informed of the newest member of his family). Resistant to the adoption at first, he was soon pawed over once he found out the puppy's name was Beau, the one he picked out.
You can't save all the lost puppies. And by God, there are still 2 cute, flea infested pug pups, free to good home. But little Beauregard, he's been saved. He's going home to a nice flea dip and a cozy family who will make sure he doesn't go running off to play too close to the highway. You can't save them all. But you can save one. Fleas are temporary. Puppy love is forever.
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