This is a long one.

I talked to my Dad on Thursday, and he's set to have more spinal surgeries (he's had 8 so far) in the months to come. The first one would be on the first day of Justin's pre-deployment leave, and there was no way he and my mom could come visit anymore. Justin and I were both really bummed out to not see them before he left. So my dad worked something out where we could fly home instead! We will be mostly at home with our parents, but plan on going to Greenville for just one night. It's a really last minute trip, but I'm looking forward to it. 

Anyhow, on Saturday we went to the pool on base with our neighbors. Justin and I have gotten into swimming, and I didn't realize how much I missed it. It's been a lot of fun. Afterwards we all went to Dairy Queen for Blizzards, yum.

When we get there, my neighbor saw a large dog laying outside. He's not getting up, but he's alert. I wanted to go check on him, but I've had to go through the months of rabies vaccinations before, and I was scared. But then we hear from the DQ people that the dog has been out there since noon, and they had called animal control then. It was 130 at the time and still no one had come. And that made me mad.

I decided we would take him water. Around that time another guy was heading out there, and the poor pup pees himself because he's scared. So we knew he wasn't vicious, and we sat down with him. It looked as if he'd been hit and rolled by a car and he was starting to give up. We got him to drink a little, and found tags on his collar for his vet. We called the vet on the tag, the no-kill shelter, and animal control 10 more times, and no one was doing anything. The other guy had to leave, but Justin and I stayed out there. After about 2 hours of sitting outside we flagged down cops from the main road. They were nice enough to stay out there with us and radio in help. 

Eventually, the shelter gets there and does the micro-chip scan. The cops radio animal control, who were on the way, and turns out the owners have been calling asking about someone finding him all day. The poor pup was 11 years old, and had run away the night before because he got really scared of a bad storm we were having. It just broke my heart that SO many people just drove right by, walked right by - and left him on the side of the road! UGH it still makes me so angry to think about it! AND that someone hit him in the first place and just left him there. I just hate people. But his owners came out to get him and take him to the vet and they were so happy and relieved and it just made everything worth it. What a day.