One minute you are heading to your car to leave for work and the next, you see this dirty little polar bear face peeking around your front fender. Your brain quickly registers, at its deepest levels, "Now, wait a minute. There shouldn't be a scruffy looking baby polar bear by my car." It was a similar experience when I spotted a rattlesnake curled up just feet away from where I was obliviously and quite happily watering my garden in the same ritualistic way I always water my garden. The mind intuitively tells you that something here is out of place.
The uneventful becomes the eventful and in a mere moment not paused long enough to have time to process anything meaningful, your life changes...just like that.
Meet Frodo.
This morning, Frodo decided to limp, on three legs, into our lives.
From the very first moment we went to him, he has been nothing but the sweetest of souls. Whimpering when you leave his side for too long and hiding under my dress for safety and protection from the cruel world he has, despite the odds, survived.
Frodo is in pretty bad shape. Knowing this, we immediately scooped him up and rushed him to the emergency vet.
The vet believes Frodo is just a puppy, maybe barely one year old. He is missing several toenails and has broken toes on his non-weight bearing back left foot. He was covered in ticks and a dozen little wounds. You can count his ribs from afar and run your fingers along his boney spine; he is severely emaciated. I find myself unable to hold his gaze for long as I am on the edge of crying and cannot stop thinking about what he has endured.
Though he is weak, he eagerly wags his tail when you speak to him and smiles as only a dog can do. We cautiously have been rehydrating him throughout the day and feeding him at digestible intervals. The vet sent us home with a half dozen bottles of this and that. One of those little magic pills caused the ticks to evacuate quickly. Paul has been diligently catching them as they run across Frodo's fur. He's shared we are up to 30 ticks now. Oh, how I love this man and his love for animals.
Frodo sleeps next to me as I type. It is as if he has always belonged here. He's exhausted and has slept most of the day. I suspect he will be sleeping for days. I keep whispering into his ear, "You're safe. Rest now."
There is much I'd like to write about the cruelty shown our most innocent of creatures. I hold back not wanting to invest energy and words into such dark thoughts. We don't know if Frodo was dumped or is lost. We do know that he has been on his own, without a family, for a long time. We've already searched all of the lost ads and posted a found ad of our own.
"Frodo, we hope Rivendell will be your forever home."
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