By Joe Hobby
On a two lane highway headed back from Smith Lake, my son spotted them. A black and white bird dog mix with a terrier as his running mate. They were dirty, stinky, skittish dogs. Not a collar between them. It was obvious they had missed a few meals. one of them had a dime sized tick below her eye. Normally, curs like this elicit a collective sigh, and are forgotten by the next mile marker. Not today. Not when the black and white one could have been the brother of my beloved, departed bird dog Precious. Rilynne, my brash, insightful, 7 year old granddaughter recognized this fact and issued a command. “Dad! You have to turn around! It looks just like Precious! We have to show him to Granddaddy!” A tap on the brakes, a three point turn, and within 5 minutes, I’m getting a FaceTime message of a girl playing chase with two nasty pups. In another two hours they would be in my back yard getting all the love and hamburger meat they can lap up. Strays no more, but members of my family.
So it’s good bye clean house. Hello dog fur and carpet accidents. That’s OK with me. I’m a dog person. I prefer dogs to most people. Consequently, it was no surprise to my friends how hard I took the loss of my last two dogs, Precious and Bugsy. Even though it’s been almost 2 years, the wound still hasn’t healed. On several occasions I swore I would never have dogs again, because I already had the two pet loves of my life. People told me to get over it and get two more – there are so many that needed rescuing.
So, I guess it was time. I wasn’t ready, but they were. And 24 hours ago on the side of Highway 257 between Curry and Jasper, Alabama it happened. They found me.
This morning I heard the Powerball lottery is up to $700 million. But yesterday, two dogs hit a lottery ticket worth more than that to them. And I probably did too.