I would make the hour and a half drive up to College Station
every Friday evening after work to spend the weekends with my fiancée before
heading back to Houston on Monday morning.
On one of these weekends, my fiancée and I went for a drive in the
country. If you’ve ever been to College
Station, you know that there is a lot of rural countryside to drive through
around the city. It was a warm, sunny
day, and we were enjoying the drive in my brand new 2003 S10 pickup truck. We had our windows down, letting the smell of
wildflowers waft through the cab of the truck, and we were chatting about
something or another.
Suddenly, we saw something dart out in front of the car in
front of us. He didn’t even try to stop,
and whatever had run in front of him bounced off the right side of his bumper
and went flying off the road. He kept on
driving, but we stopped to see what it was. We discovered it, lying in the tall grass in the ditch. It was a dog, or as we were to find out later, a puppy…just two years
old. He was brown, and white, and black
with big floppy ears and long lean legs.
If I were to guess, I’d say he was an American Foxhound.
At first, we thought he was dead, his motionless carcass
lying there covered in blood, but then he lifted his head just the slightest. I slowly approached him, not sure how he’d
react to my presence, looking over his wounds as I circled him. He looked bad. Blood was everywhere, and he was making no
attempt to actually stand up or move other than his head. I knelt down by his head, talking to him in a
soothing voice, and I reached out my hand to gently stroke his neck. He just stared at me with his
chocolate-colored eyes. I didn’t know
how badly he was hurt, but I did know that if we didn’t get him to a hospital
soon, that he would die.
So, with my fiancée’s help, I managed to slide my arms under
him as gently as possible and pick him up.
His long legs were hanging limply beneath him as I carried him to the
truck. I didn’t want to put him inside,
because of the blood, but I also didn’t want to just throw him into the back of
the truck. Somehow, I managed to hike my
backend up on the tailgate and scoot back, while still holding him in my
arms. I slide back, so my fiancée could
shut the tailgate, and then I laid him gentle in my lap. He never fussed or attempted to move. He just laid there with his head resting on
my leg.
With my fiancée behind the wheel, we began the 20 min drive
back to the city. I kept stroking his
head, telling him that he was going to make it, hoping that my voice could
soothe him and ease the pain I know he must have been feeling. At some point during the drive back, he lifted
his head to look at me, and our eyes locked.
Something passed between us…it was strange. It was like he was talking to me with his
eyes, and I could understand exactly what he was saying. He said, “I don’t know you, but I know you’re
a kind soul. I trust you to take care of
me. Thank you for pulling over.” I kid you not, it was as if someone had said
those words out loud. I knew somehow
that that was what he was saying to me.
He held my gaze for a minute longer, and then satisfied that
I had understood him, he placed his head back on my leg. I kept stroking his head, and I said, “God
sent me to find you. He’s going to make
you better. He’s going to give you a
second chance. I know you’re hurting,
but just hang on a little longer.”
After what seemed like an eternity, we finally pulled into
the small animal hospital attached to the university. I gently picked him up again, scooted to the
back of the truck, and dropped down. My fiancée
was already at the door, talking to the nurse inside, when I carried him
in. They directed me to an exam room,
where I placed him on the table, and a doctor immediately went to work
examining him.
We stepped outside to give the nurse some details about the
accident and what we knew of his condition.
She said that it would probably take an hour or so to run all of the
tests, and we gave her our number and asked to be notified when they had the
results. On our way out of the door, I
remembered what I had said to him in the truck, and I turned back to the
nurse. I said, “I don’t want him to just
be called ‘dog’ or something generic like that.
I called him ‘Chance’ because God gave him a second chance.” She smiled at me, and said, “I
understand. I’ll note that in his file.”
Chance was indeed a lucky dog. He had a broken hip, but would make a full
recover with time. The nurse told us
that we could adopt him, if we wanted, but it would take a lot of money and
time to rehabilitate him. As much as I
wanted to, I knew that we weren’t in a position to give him the home that he
deserved. They sponsored him in the Good
Samaritan program, so that all of his bills would be paid by donations. When he had fully recovered, they’d put him
up for adoption and find him a good home.
I know that I had only spent about a half an hour with the
little guy, but I had already fallen in love with him. We had an incomprehensible connection. Something happened in the back of that truck,
that I still can’t explain to this day. We
bonded. Even after we decided to give
him up, I was still agonizing over the decision. The next day, my fiancée found me crying in
the living room. She didn’t ask, she
didn’t have to. She just wrapped her
arms around me in a hug and let me cry.
It’s been 14 years, and I still think about Chance. He’s probably moved on to Heaven by now. I hope he had a good life. I hope God put him with people that loved
him. I sometimes wonder if I made the
right decision letting him go. Our life
was crazy, especially those first five or six years, so I believe I probably
did. But still…it would have been nice
to lavish him with the love he deserved.
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