So, the strangest thing happened the other day. My husband took our oldest to school early in the morning. Nothing odd happened on the way to the school, but on the way home from dropping off my daughter, he saw a little dog on the side of our road. He pulled over and picked up the small Yorkshire terrier. He immediately came home and woke me up.
Finding a dog on our rural, secluded, mile-long, private road is not completely strange – people tend to “dump” animals in our area, thinking that these poor pets will somehow happily live out their lives in the wild. It’s sickening. I have taken in, cared for, and re-homed several “dumped” dogs in my lifetime in the county. What was strange was that this was a very small (maybe 5 pounds), very cute, well-groomed, obviously pure-bred Yorkie.
Catherine, the Yorkie, who now lives with my aunt and uncle
What’s even stranger is that Yorkies is what I do! I own a small business and make organic grooming products for Yorkshire terriers. I have been doing this for more than 12 years now. I have always had a Yorkie, but when we moved out to our more rural home, I decided to re-home my little 4-pound Yorkie with my aunt and uncle. My little Catherine is so small, I was worried about foxes, coyotes, eagles, and the like. My aunt and uncle have always loved Catherine, and had been telling me for years that if I ever needed to re-home her, to think of them first.
When we found this cute little Yorkie, I took photos and posted all over facebook, I called local vets and animal shelters – surely someone is looking for this little girl. I took her to our vet and we found a microchip – unfortunately it wasn’t registered.
The Found Yorkie
By the end of the first day, my posts had been shared about 200 times. By the afternoon of the second day, I got a message from someone who recognized her. Long story short, this little girl was re-homed to a new family just a few days before we found her. The new family was still, 48-hours later, telling the original owners that the dog was safely in their care. I met with the original owner, who came over, microchip number in hand, and verified that this was the same dog she had recently re-homed.
The whole thing was just mind boggling. Fortunately, the original owner was super sweet and was very thankful that we had cared for her little girl. I told her that, since she was going to a new home before, if she would allow it, we would like to keep her. We agreed to keep her for a week to make sure it was a good “fit” before committing ourselves.
The kids love her, I’ve already started knitting sweaters, and so far things are going well. Now, we need to give her a new name.
