Finding Lucy

She ghosted into the campground shortly after lunch on a Friday. I’m not sure if she was just passing through, or if she knew campgrounds meant food. We were there for a 2-day camping trip – a promise to our 7-year old in return for the past three weeks of too-busy schedules. After a gasp of shock, all of our eyes were drawn to her gaunt body; even from a distance we could see the hip bones and ribs. She sat by the dumpster for a minute or two, looking this way and that, and then stood and began to shuffle off towards the woods. I’m not sure exactly what I said, but I remember looking at my husband and blurting something to the effect of, “We can’t NOT feed her.” Hanging in the seconds between when we first saw her are all the things you think – “How can we help, who did this, if I feed her, what then?” Then the other thoughts – “does she have a home, is there a collar,” and finally, "I can’t help myself …"

I think my kind-hearted better-half was thinking the same thing, as I myself shuffled off down the stairs to the cooler at the bottom – remembering him calling to me, “there’s roast beef in there and some hot dogs,” and our son following behind me as we’re cautioning him to stay back and not to touch her. She’s a stray after all, and we have no idea how she’ll act. I’m following after her, and Aidan is a bit behind me, and she’s about to cross over the bridge into the woods, and I start calling to her. Half-way thinking to myself: “it would probably be better to leave her, let her go, maybe she’s got puppies,” because at this point, I can tell that she’s probably just weaned a litter. But, she hears me, and shy, frightened, she stops and stands to look at me. I put the roast beef down and move away, and she’s on it so fast – not stopping to chew or breathe or anything. Wolfs it down – literally the way she looks is ravenous and I think of a wild animal. I turn to my son and tell him to head back to the camp and I’m turning to go too – thinking about the rest of the food in the cooler, and I hear someone call out – “I think you made a friend.” It’s an older couple in an RV and they’re gesturing behind me. I turn around, and the tan and white hound-mix is tentatively following me. I say to the man, “It’s just not right, who would do this?” I’ve seen the terrible scar across her back and can tell by the way she holds herself – someone has mistreated this pup and I’m not sure how, but she’s still following me, head down, tail between her legs. Glance up, shuffle, not making eye contact with me.

She’s with us for the next few hours, on a blanket in our campsite, as I call directory assistance and look for rescue shelters, emergency vets, whatever. It’s a late Friday afternoon, and the emergency vet I get on the phone is angry, not at me, but at the politicians who won’t fund a shelter in this area, and then she tells me about the counties hunting dogs and how they’re sometimes abandoned when they’ve reached the end of their “usefulness.” It’s a similar story at the Animal League I contact, and then the humane society. Neither can promise a no-kill situation, so those contacts are abandoned after questioning. By this time I’ve named her and her careful eyes seem to light a little when they fall on my son.

She rode back with us the next day, after meeting some other campground neighbors and getting a similar story from the camp host – this one about the rescue beagle they have up by the host site. He’d been shot at and left for dead, but 4 years later and he’s the well-fed guard of the camp host site.

We stopped by our local rescue league on the way home, but they were full and talked to us about fostering her. So, home she came – fleas, ticks, careful eyes and all. The next day my husband made a run for her in the backyard and the day after that, I made calls to find what services might be available. And every day she had a full bowl of food and fresh water and gentle scratches and patting. Kind words and use of her name and consistency. Turns out those donations we made to the rescue place were funding a pretty good organization as we went to pick up a nice igloo dog house for her, and found out about a voucher to get her spayed. Two days after that, we got her shots there and they also gave her a bath, de-worming medicine and a flea treatment. We walked away as foster parents and a dog that was straining on her leash and collar to get back into the van for the ride home.

So, outside tonight sits Lucy, by her igloo. She doesn’t like to go in it; she prefers the dog bed she’s got right next to her bowl of food and water (and the ham bone she buried and re-buried around dinner time). I’m not sure who her forever family will be, but I know it won’t be the Mississippi forest we pulled her out of, and I know it won’t be a shelter. They do good work, but the movie “Hotel for Dogs,” has taught my son that there are happy endings, and if our three rescue cats are any indication, my husband and I seem to think so too.

Finding Lucy, Lucy finding us? I don’t know. It’s too early to tell – but I do know that the little white ghost is holding her head up a little higher now, and every time the back door opens and we come out, a tail starts wagging like crazy – and that’s a lot better than one tucked between the legs.