Wildfires (Continued)

The first numbers which were released by the authorities last week involving the fires were that about 70 "structures" had been burned.  It sure seemed like a lot more than that to me.

I went into the local hardware store on Monday after the fires and four of the six people who work in there were homeless, including Wes, the owner.  Richard, Susan, and Charles all had lost their homes.  The American Red Cross did a survey last Monday and raised their estimate to 209 families homeless.

Being late August, school is getting ready to start and the count of homeless at school was five teachers and 76 students.  It really is getting to the point that you hate to ask someone if they lost their home because the answer is probably going to be yes.

I had to go by the local tag office yesterday and, sure enough, one of the women who works there, Rhonda, had lost her home.  She and her husband are living in an RV until they can get started again.

Last night about 9:15 p.m., I was returning from a trip to my land which is about fifteen miles away.  At the intersection of Highways 48 and 51, I spotted a dog with no tail running around the intersection.  I recognized the dog as the one that our friend, Amy, had been trying to catch for over a week.  I pulled the Jeep over, got out, and tried to coax the dog up to me but she would have no part of it.

While I was trying to lure the dog up, a Nissan pickup pulled up with a young couple in it and asked if I needed help.  I explained what I was doing and the woman got out and tried to get the dog to come to her.  I idly asked the young man if he had lost anything and he said, Yes, he had lost everything, including his carpentry tools which he made a living with.

I was really struck that these people had lost everything they own but pulled over to see if they could help me!  Perhaps there is some hope for the human race after all.  By the way, the latest numbers I have heard from the wildfires are over 400 homes lost.  It truly is an unforgettable tragedy!

A New Dog

Our friend, Amy, spotted a small brown dog about a week ago out on the highway.  Well, Amy is a real softie for animals so she spent four days trying to catch that dog and keep him from getting hit by a car.

She finally cornered him last Wednesday; in the process of capturing him, he chewed her hands up pretty good!  The first thing she did with him was to carry him down to Dr. Lasarsky, the local vet, to see what kind of shape the dog was in.  The vet allowed that he was about two years old, with no heartworms, but also had not eaten well recently.  Also, his coat was so bad that they needed to clip it all off to get rid of everything.

Amy left the dog there and they called back in a few hours to tell her that the dog was white, not brown, after they got him cleaned up.  Amy posted a picture of him on Facebook so Louise and I decided to go look at him.  Big mistake!  One look and we told Amy we wanted him.  Since we were leaving town for the weekend, we asked her if she would mind taking care of him til we got home and she said she would be happy to.

We cut our trip short a day and got home yesterday instead of today.  When we got home, we called Amy and she asked if she could keep him one more day - she has already fallen in love with that little dog!

We don't know what breed he is but we do know he will always be a somewhat small dog, probably around 10 pounds.  He appears to be part poodle and looks a lot like J.J., our other dog.  We are excited about having another dog around the house; he will be great company for J.J. and for us.

We are wrestling with a name.  Our first inclination was to call him "Jake" but that name is really too close to J.J.'s name and it might be confusing.  Right now, we are leaning toward "Boo".  I'll let you know.  The picture is of him on the porch with Terry, Amy's husband.

Dog Followup

Looking at some of the old blogs, I noticed a story about Herb, the dog who stayed with us for a week or so. He was a neat dog and we would have loved to keep him but, unfortunately, we found his owners.

Because of him, we did decide to get a dog so now we have J.J. He is about two years old and came from the Small Paws Rescue group. He is a lot of fun and makes me wonder why we waited 14 years after our last dog died to get another. Oh, well.

J.J. loves to go for rides in the Jeep and goes with me every day to the post office. My son, Dan, and I joke about our lack of masculinity driving around with a little white poodle looking dog but, at age 65, I don't really care.

Moral Dilemmas

Dan and Dorinda were visiting over the Holidays and they found a dog in downtown Tulsa. They brought it to our house and ran an ad on Craigs List to try to find the owner.

In the meantime, everyone fell in love with Herb (we found out his name later). He is about two years old, neutered, housebroken, and very well mannered. I had already decided that Louise and I would keep the dog if the owner wasn't found.

Dan and Dorinda made a pass through the neighborhood where they had found Herb and, sure enough, there were posters up looking for him. It was an extremely difficult decision for everyone in our family to call the number on the poster and tell them that we had their dog. In the end, though, we were glad we did and I'm sure Herb's owner was glad.

The picture shows Herb licking Dan's boot with Lucy, our Granddog, looking on. It was one more event in a very memorable Christmas season.