Last year, at the age of 42, dogs came into my life. My cat of 18 years passed away and one Saturday, on the way to the shelter to look at the kittens, my husband and I saw a matted brown dog, staggering on the side of a busy road. We were afraid she had been hit by a car, so we stopped and took her to an emergency vet. She was nearly blind and mute. The emergency vet told us it was hard to tell how old she was, but they thought she was 12 to 15. We could choose not to pay the bill and leave her. No hesitation – we bought a dog training collar and she became our dog. The plight of this former dog, someone’s pet for many years obviously, being seriously neglected and dumped along the roadside broke our hearts. The amount of compassion and love I felt for him, and the joy I felt in his company changed me permanently.
