I HAVE to tell you about this amazing adventure I had on Saturday. It all started with a miserable Thursday morning when I found out that SCOUT, one of the shelter/rescue dogs I took to Alderson a couple weeks ago, was having problems. He had been stressed since entering the program, had growled and bit one of the trainers. The bite didn't break skin or leave a mark, but clearly, SCOUT needed to come home. I felt terrible! Many people think that if a dog bites, it is automatically a bad dog. This simply is not the case. A dog cannot talk and say, "Hey, I'm really uncomfortable here!" What they can do is show as many body language signals as possible to communicate stress and to try to alleviate the situation. However, most people don't know how to read dog stress signals-if that doesn't work a dog will bite (many dogs do this as a last resort). I KNEW that Scout wasn't a bad dog-he had been put in a situation (the prison) that was so radically different from anything he knew that his stress never dissipated-he just couldn't cope and had been trying to tell us all along. For him a bite was a last resort. I felt horrible that SCOUT was in this situation and planned to drive up to get him and come home Saturday. I had to make many calls to inform everyone of the situation and to confirm my arrival for Saturday. One of the people I needed to call was Ann, who runs the Cabarrus Pet Society where SCOUT came from. She was so very sorry and surprised by the situation (SCOUT had never bitten anyone before-another clear sign to me of his extreme stress) and said she wished she could do something to help.
A few hours later, Ann called back to tell me that her husband was a pilot (he flew his own twin engine plane), was available on Saturday and they would love to fly me up to the prison to get SCOUT-would that be ok?................! You can imagine my surprise and excitement! Ann and her wonderful husband Bill had just offered to save me at least 9 hours in the car.......of course that was ok!!!!
Everything worked out. Lynda (SCOUT's foster mom here in Concord, myself, Ann and Bill met at the Salisbury Airport on Saturday morning at 10:30. We were in the air at 10:45, arrived in Lewisburg by 11:30, rented a car and arrived at the prison by 12:20 (I had asked a couple of the inmate trainers to meet me at 12:15). I got SCOUT and was leaving in 15 minutes. We grabbed lunch, headed back to the airport and were getting home by 2:30 (!!!!!!!!!) This is THE MOST amazing thing that has happened in a long time. WOW! The day was gorgeous, not a cloud in the sky, we could see forever in the plane, the flight was smooth as butter (except for a bit of turbulence over the mountains), SCOUT was ecstatic to see all the people he knew (especially Lynda) he did well in the plane-we were all home way before dinner-it was incredible!!
A possibly excruciatingly long day (with a possible excruciating headache) was turned into a wonderful day with good friends, a great time and a wonderful flight. I swear someone hit the giant "easy" button on my life that day!
What wonderful people (thank you Ann, Bill and Lynda) not only for your generosity and friendship but for running a rescue organization that will do anything for your wonderful dogs!
P.S. Don't forget to click on the latest CAMDEN post-I posted some great pictures of him and Alex!
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