Atti

On Saturday, my friends and I experienced something I never want to see again.

It involved a dog – don’t stop reading yet, this story has a good ending.

The route we usually run on Saturdays is in an area where we don’t see a lot of loose or stray dogs – some owners let their dogs out, then let them back in and some walk their dogs on a leash.
This particular incident was different. It was just another normal day – we had 8 miles on the schedule. A guy in our running group passed us by. We waved, said hi, then kept on going. As we reached an intersection a few blocks ahead, we noticed that same guy stopped in the road. We wondered what was going on and that’s when we saw it – a dog….a big dog, limping really bad. The dog attempted to jump up on the porch of a house. He couldn’t hold his balance so he fell off the porch…he then crawled under the house and that’s where we found him.

There was blood from a wound on his leg and I think he had at least one broken leg if not two. We asked our running friend what happened and he said the dog was walking in the road, a driver of a truck wasn’t paying attention…and well, you can guess what happened after that.
(Side note, I am REALLY sensitive to animals so I wouldn't share this story with you if it didn’t have a good ending so bear with me!)

I noticed that the dog was wearing a collar with a rabies tag (good sign) so if all else failed, my last resort would be to crawl under the house and see if I could make out the numbers on the collar.
Blood was all over the porch and as the dog crawled under the house, it was on the leaves and ground as well. We tried calling the dog….he wouldn’t come. He was not going to budge.

I looked up at the front door and noticed a “Beware of Dog” sign. If this wasn’t the owners dog, I prayed they at least knew who it belonged to. A girl a little younger than I answered the door. I asked if she had a dog and at first, I think she thought we were there to tell her that her dog got out. She didn’t realize until I knocked on the door (at that moment) that her dog was not there.

I explained what happened and she saw the blood. I reassured her that he was under the house, very alert, and had what we thought were two broken legs. Even she couldn’t not coax him out from under the house.

Our plan to get him out from under the house……get a sheet under the dog, pull him out from under the house, wrap him in the sheet, put him in the vehicle, then bring him to the emergency vet. That plan didn’t go so well, the dog was so scared, he was not even cooperating with his owner. Not even BBQ could coax him out from under the house!  (We knew it was bad then!)

After waiting around a few minutes, she profusely thanked us for everything, then called for backup.
We continued our run, but I couldn’t get Atticus off my mind. After we got back to our cars, I asked Kelli if she would follow me over to the house so I could check and make sure everything was ok.
When we pulled up to the house, they were making progress with getting the dog out from under the house.

I could tell that the owner was pretty shaken up and when she started to say “If only I had known…” I told her not to do that to herself, just be grateful we were there at that given moment…and be grateful her dog came back home so we were able to find her. She said she’s glad there’s still good people in this world and I told her I would only want someone to do the same for me.

It felt good to know that we helped save his life. I am relieved knowing that he was surrounded by family who helped him, but I still wonder about Atticus today. I really hope he is ok and all of his issues were fixable.

I’m just glad we were there at that moment in that given time. This incident just goes to show….in every bad moment there’s a good side….for in Atticus’ situation, it could have been far worse.



Update:

I visited with Atti's owner about a month after the incident. Thankfully, he only suffered two broken bones and nothing worse. He healed up well and is in good shape now! :)
Update: