Highway Adventures

...with rather mysterious connections.

Yesterday I finally got my internet connection (and my life) back, after going without for NINE days – my modem got fritzed by lightning… This didn’t give me enough time to finish the research for some other articles I’d been working on, so I decided to add a little story instead. I originally wrote it for the Abiquiu News, the weekly online newsletter that connects our small communities and keeps us in touch.

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When I need groceries, I have to drive to Santa Fe, because there’s no store in the little village in northern New Mexico where I live. It takes one and a half hours, and a large part of the trip goes along a very busy two-lane highway that connects Texas and Colorado. The speed limit often is 60 mph but people usually go at least 10 miles faster. I’m glad when this trip is uneventful.

However, sometimes it’s not. Near another small village I came across a seriously undernourished dog walking way too close to the road. I stopped the car, got out, and tried to catch the dog so I could take him to the nearest Humane Society, but he didn’t let me come closer than a few feet, and kept walking away from me, back towards the village. Not only was he way too skinny, but his testicles were enlarged and he had some other big tumors. I had left the driver’s door wide open when I had jumped out of the car, and I had forgotten to take my phone, so I went to get it and close the door.

Walking back to where the dog was, I noticed another car had stopped, a woman had gotten out, and was offering the dog some kibble, to no avail. I joined her and we were talking about what to do, when a police car arrived and the officer warned us that it was very dangerous to park so near the road. We told him about the neglected dog, but “Don’t jump to conclusions”, the officer said, “He may not be neglected!” “But he has these big tumors!” “There may be nothing the owner can do!” “But he’s seriously undernourished!” “He may not WANT to eat!” “But it’s dangerous for the dog to run along the highway! YOU told US it was dangerous to stand near a parked car, how much more dangerous for the dog!” Well, that convinced the officer. “I’ll drive back and have a look”, he said. The driver of the other car, her name was Maggie, also turned around and drove back – after she gave me a small bag of kibble, “I always keep those in my car”, she said. Five minutes later the officer came back. He told me he had alerted Animal Control, and had requested another police car to stay on scene because he had to be somewhere else. I saw both these vehicles shortly after I continued my trip to Santa Fe.

I kept thinking about the fate of this poor dog while I was driving; would Animal Control be able to catch him? Would he be taken care of at the Humane Society? I couldn’t take my mind off the creature, knowing from experience how many abandoned dogs and cats end up as roadkill. 

These are NOT the dogs that I saw but they look very similar.

After about two thirds of the way the road turns into a four-lane highway and traffic gets even more busy. But when I reached Pojoaque, a town about 30 miles from Santa Fe, the cars slowed down and I saw several emergency vehicles with their lights blinking. An accident, maybe? Whatever it was that brought traffic to a halt seemed to be in the left lane, so I moved into the furthest right lane which also came to a stop. And then I saw the cause: two frightened, confused dogs were running across the lanes, and police officers had stopped traffic so that they wouldn’t get hit. The woman in the car in front of me got out with a leash in her hand; I rolled down my window to offer her the kibble I had gotten from Maggie, but before she could get closer to my car, some kibble fell to the ground and the doggies were right there beside my open window, eating the food! The woman could put one of the dogs on her leash, a police officer could hold the other dog by the collar until an animal control officer came with a leash, they thanked us for our help, and the dogs were safe! It totally blew my mind: HOW I had gotten the kibble that helped save the two dogs. 

These two were playing in the Chama River.

There’s a sad epilogue to the story. I called the Humane Society, they had indeed received the dog with the tumors. They kept him overnight but had to put him to sleep the next morning: he had too many tumors and couldn’t relieve himself, possibly because of damaged inner organs. They did give him a cheeseburger before, and the woman I talked to assured me that he did receive love and affection during his last hours. Probably a rare event in his life, which easily could have ended in a terrible accident.

And the two other dogs? They were taken to the Santa Fe Animal Shelter, and when I called a few days later, I was told that the owners had come to pick them up. At least ONE part of the story had a happy ending.

Do you have doggies? Or cats? Let me know!