Miracle Mutt
A true story
Rita Villa
Copyright 2012 Rita Villa
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I guess I was meant to find that big black lump in the road because destiny definitely brought me to just the right time and place for it to happen. A few seconds in either direction and I wouldn’t be telling this story.
It started on a beautiful Thursday morning. I had taken off from work and was headed to Lilly Dale, a spiritual community just south of Buffalo NY. It was really strange because normally I would have taken the NY State Thruway, it’s easier than going the back roads and there are lots of rest stops. But it’s boring. My husband insisted that I go the back way. I have no idea why. He even took out the map and marked a route.
It’s about a two and a half hour ride so I left early that morning. The winding country roads were beautiful and I enjoyed the rolling hills, pine trees, and farms. About an hour and a half into the ride I ended up on a very twisty road with people going way too fast, at least fifty five mph around those crazy corners and up hills. I could barely see twenty feet in front of me with all the curves in the road.
And then I saw it. The big black lump. What the heck is that, I wondered as I slowed down, hoping no one would hit me from behind. All of a sudden I realized it was a dog! He’d obviously been hit by a car. I felt horrible. The last thing I wanted to come across was a dead dog. My heart sank. Animal lover that I am I hate seeing anything dead in the road, least of all a huge mutt. I slowed down almost to a stop. Traffic flew by be in the other direction. Luckily no one was behind me. I swallowed the lump in my throat and decided I should stop. I had to move the poor dead dog from the road.
Then his eyes moved! That was it, nothing else. Just the eyes. “He’s alive! Oh my God.” I went into panic mode. “The poor thing is still alive! I’ve got to get him out of the road before someone flies around that corner and kills him.” Quickly, I pulled over, jumped out of my car and dragged him gently to the grass. “You poor thing.” I couldn’t lift him. He was way too heavy.
Blood ran from his jowls. Scrapes and cuts covered his legs and body. His sad brown eyes looked at me. But he didn’t move. Not even a toe. My heart felt like it would explode. “I’m going to get you some help, boy,” I kept saying to him. “You’re going to be fine.” But I knew if I didn’t get him help now, he wasn’t going to be fine.
I ran to the closest house. No one answered. I tried the next one. Still nothing. I had to get this huge dog into my car by myself. Now I’m pretty strong but this was about seventy pounds of limp weight with injuries. And I had to get him into the passenger side of my small two-seater.
I’ve always heard that an injured animal might bite, so I was cautious at first. But those sad eyes said it all. “Please help me.” That was it. There was not a mean bone in this dog’s body, even with injuries. I mustered all the strength I could and said to him and myself, “We’re just going to do this. We’ve got to get you to the vet.” By now I knew if I didn’t get him there within minutes, he’d be dead. So I just leaned down and with everything I had picked up that limp seventy pounds and fit him into the car, his head resting on the center console.
I hopped in, spun the car around, and headed back toward Yorkshire, the closest small town I could remember. “You’re going to be okay, boy, really, just hang on. Please, hang on.” I grabbed my phone and called my husband. “You’ve got to find me a vet right away. I found a dog in the road and he doesn’t have much time left.” I rested my right hand on his big head and just kept talking to him over and over. “Just hang on. I’m going to get you help.” Blood seeped from his wounds and he felt cold, like he was going into shock.
My husband called back. There was a vet close by. I made the first right and drove a few blocks until I saw it. “We’re there, boy, we’re there.” I zoomed into the parking lot, pulled up near the front door and ran in. They were wonderful. Within seconds the vet had the dog on a stretcher and headed in for treatment.
They rushed him into the back. I sat in the waiting room and every few minutes a technician would step out and fill me in. “He’s out of immediate danger,” she said. “We’ve stopped the bleeding and are stitching him up right now. We’ve given him some medication.” I don’t remember what the medication was. But I think it was something to help him from going into shock. Then she left. A few more minutes went by. “We took some x-rays. It looks like he was homeless since his stomach is full of mice and other small things. He’s probably been on his own for quite awhile.”
While I sat in the waiting room the secretary called around to see about any missing dogs, just in case he had run away or something. “There are no dogs missing that fit his description,” she said. “But I’m going to report this to the police. I can’t imagine who could have hit him and then just left. How horrible.”
I called my husband to give him an update. “They say he has a broken hip and his front leg is really bad, broken and some bones crushed. He’s going to need surgery on both. But they can’t do it until tomorrow. They think it would be too risky today. They want to get him stabilized over night.” I went back in and gave them all the cash I had on me toward his bill. “Please call me as soon as you know anything.”
I sat my car and cried. I don’t know if it was all the stress or that I was so happy the dog was going to be okay. I turned my car around and headed home; I needed to be home, I could go to Lilly Dale anytime. That day I had been called to save a life. Though I was worried about the big mutt, I knew I had left him in good hands and I felt happy the universe had used me in such a way.
The surgery went well and for the next few days, right after work, my husband, Gary, and I went to see him. We’d work all day and then hop into the car and drive an hour and a half to the vet’s office. He was a very cute dog. He looked a bit like a Rottwieler, but more houndish. With long ears, huge feet and a giant wet nose. We later realized he might be part Coonhound.
He was very, very thin, and would just sit there in the back of the kennel. He looked so depressed and still couldn’t walk. “It’s going to be okay, boy, really,” we’d say. We’d sit with him, pet him and tell him repeatedly that it would be alright. We’d carry him out to the yard and let him lay on the grass. It was summer and I’m sure the sun felt good on his skin. He’d have permanent scars where his skin had been scraped off on the road. We loved him already. The sad eyes told his story. A homeless, unloved dog who’d been eating mice for dinner and somehow surviving on the streets alone. How would we cheer him up and make him feel loved? “You’ll live with us, boy,” we’d say. “We live in the country, you’ll like it there.” But still he’d just look at us and then look away. So, so sad.
The third night and $800.00 into this ordeal, we were sitting in the kennel with the dog when the vet came out. “Can you guys come into the office for a minute? We need to talk,” he said. It didn’t sound good. I was terrified. But the dog looked okay. Sad, but okay. And I knew we’d cure that sadness once we got him home. But the vet looked so serious. We followed him to the office, about forty feet down the hallway and to the left. It was after hours and the office was closed so no one was there but us.
The three of us sat down and he got this even more serious look on his face. “I’m really, really sorry to say this but the dog is never going to walk again. We were wrong about the damage to his legs. Between injuries to the front leg and the broken hip, there’s just no way he’ll ever walk again. I’m afraid we’re going to have to put him down.”
As that last sentence began to sink in, we heard a noise, shuffling. Then silence. We all looked up. The dog was standing in the doorway! He’d walked forty feet down the hallway and into the office to see what we were doing. None of us spoke. We just looked at him standing there, looking back at all of us. It was one of the strangest moments of my life. After a few seconds, we laughed. “Well, I guess he’s got another opinion,” I said. That day, right there in the vet’s office, we witnessed a miracle.
Eight years later, Silas is still living with us and as far as the idea he’d never walk again, he’s proved everybody wrong. He runs around our yard as fast as a racehorse. His long whip tail wags around in circles, he treasures cookies and drool hangs from his oversized lips. He weighs almost eighty pounds now, but he thinks he’s a lap dog. Dinner is his favorite word. He has been a wonderful part of our family since that day I saw the big black lump in the road. He’s proof that a dog can give you hope, loving companionship, and most of all, make you believe in miracles.
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Many thanks to the Yorkshire Veterinary Clinic
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