(Not Very) Wordless Wednesday 12.24.14

After a marathon day of shopping, wrapping and cooking, I went to bed last night knowing I needed one more gift and a smattering of items from the grocery store. On Christmas Eve, a day when NO ONE in their right mind wants to be anywhere near a mall or a grocery store, I was going to need to hit the mall and a grocery store.

Believing the early bird gets the worm (or avoids the crowds), I left the house at 7:30 and headed across town to the mall. The road I took is one of my most used routes. It runs behind my house, beyond the woods behind us, over a low water bridge, and then cuts diagonally across town. I use it to go to the mall, Target, Aldi, well, pretty much any major retail establishment in town, as they mostly line one street. 

As I was taking the road through a large park about a half mile from my house, I saw a big dog slowly trotting down the pavement in front of me. No people around. The dog was walking in my lane, heading the same direction as I was (perhaps HE had an errand at the mall, too?), and didn't move out of my way as I came up behind him.

I stopped the car.

The dog (did I say he was big? Make that huge.) turned and looked rather hopefully at me through my windshield. He wasn't wearing a collar. About a gallon of drool was hanging from his lower jaw.

"No, no, no, no, no," I said to myself. "I don't have tiiiiime for this!"

And I pulled over into the grass, opened my car door, and stepped out onto the pavement.

The dog promptly jumped into my front seat, went through to the back, and sat down.

Crap.

Now I've got an 85 pound dog drooling in the backseat whose head was bigger than mine, and I had no choice but to drive him to the Humane Society and hope they were open.

They weren't.

And it was snowing. And cold.

I went ahead and pulled around to the back of the building, where they take animal drop-offs, and as luck would have it, a worker pulled into the parking lot at the same time He told me he would go in and tell someone we were there.  In the meantime, Big Bubba came up to sit by me in the front seat, and we had a nice (but wet) conversation. 

He's a big ol' sweetie.

The man came back with a leash, and the three of us went inside. 

A woman came in the room ("Oh, he's a BIG pit mix!") and got my information about where I found him. They checked him for a microchip (he didn't have one - community service announcement: GET YOUR PETS CHIPPED!).

And I left him with those kind people at the Joplin Humane Society, where they work Christmas Eve and every other holiday to take care of lost and unwanted animals.

I posted a picture of him on my Facebook page, went on to run my errands, returned home to strip myself of drool-covered jeans and coat (I am truly not exaggerating), and found out an hour or so later that a friend knew someone whose dog had jumped the fence and disappeared, AND IT WAS HIM! 

It was a Christmas Miracle that I think both Santa Claus and Baby Jesus would approve of.

Totally un-lost ginormous pitbull mix related, please take a moment and listen to the following recording. It's so full of sweetness, you won't need another Christmas cookie or piece of candy for a week.

Note: this is just a picture, taken from the balcony of the sanctuary, with all the primary and pre-k kids watching the toddler class perform their Christmas program. I had to have a picture in order to upload the song to YouTube. 

This recording was done in my classroom when my pre-k kids were practicing for their Christmas program. They started and ended all on their own, because I didn't want MY voice on the recording. Precious, precious voices.