They say things happen for a reason..... well today on the way to giving a talk at Auckland SPCA (not Royal over here!) as I was driving along fellow Dog Listener Sue spotted a dog wandering in and out of the heavy traffic at a major intersection.
"We can't just leave it there" was quickly followed by a U-turn. Like the man of action I am (the previous night saw me crowd surfing at an Iron Maiden concert - ROCK!) I jumped out of the car as Sue found somewhere to park. Luckily the dog hadn't gone too far and was heading in my direction and as I knelt down and called it to me it came bounding up and virtually leapt into my arms.
I found Sue and we put the panting mess into the back of her van and headed off to the SPCA thinking how fortunate this dog was, while he (his name tag said Rupert - and that's him pictured on the left) decided barking at the outside world was a good plan at this point. The tag had a phone number (thoughtful owners or maybe they were so used to this happening) so when we arrived at the SPCA HQ we immediately told Hayley there the story and she contacted the owners who lived 15km from the place we picked Rupert up. Not long after a very emotional woman turned up, telling us she had already had three "trainers" in to sort out our intrepid explorer, all in vain.
The softly softly approach was necessary here and I gave her the website address and Sue added her contact details, and as I walked the damsel in distress (with Rupert straining at the lead in front of her) I told her that this was a very fortunate moment in all their lives - for Rupert to be picked up (rather than scraped off) a main carriageway by not one but TWO Dog Listeners and that she could stop this problem by taking over the decision making job Rupert thought he had. PLUS because we picked him up and not the SPCA she didn't even have to pay for the service!
Whether she realised this at the time remains to be seen, but all I can hope is that if she is reading this blog now it means that the only road Rupert will be on now is the road to success........
