December 31, 2009

one-eyed willie and the boys, part 1 of 3

By a fluke, three Sundays in a row I cleaned the boys’ building. The first Sunday I cleaned like I normally do, chatting with the dogs as I went. The next Sunday some of the same panting faces greeted me and we discussed some more. The third Sunday I was legitimate friends with some of the dogs in the boys’ building, like a tiny Pit Bull puppy with one eye. His name was “One-Eyed Willie” from the movie The Goonies, bestowed by the county dog catcher who found him. Willie was a brindle color and wore one of those huge plastic funnel collars that prevented him from pulling out the stitches in his empty eye socket, sewn up by the shelter veterinarian when Willie arrived. Willie was in good spirits, though his funnel collar was dirty and disgusting so I brought the little guy to the play area in the rear of the shelter and let him run around while I cleaned it. That night I laid in bed and worried that I might not have done such a good job of putting the collar back on him, which would have been unfortunate if the little guy prematurely tore out his stitches. The next afternoon I returned to the kennel and found Willie without the funnel collar completely. He pulled it off during the night, and in the morning kennel workers found he hadn’t pawed at his face so they decided he didn’t have to wear it anymore. So maybe everything worked. I told him so. He was pure excitement when I talked to him.
I figured Willie would be adopted before anyone. A one-eyed puppy in a dog pound seemed adorable to me, but I was wrong.

Here's the next part.

2 comments:

Earthianne said...

You're a good man, Ed, a good man. :)

Ben Ditty said...

Definitely brought a tear. As Earthianne said, you really are Ed.