Meeting Mr. Drake

The picture at the top of this blog is of Mr. Drake when he was in the shelter. In case you can't quite tell, he's actively being very good there.

That's how he was sitting when I first met him. I'd walked a number of other dogs that week—at that time I was going to the humane society almost every day—and so always knew when a dog was new. Drake suddenly appeared, but with a sign on his cage that said he was on medication.

Sometimes sick dogs can't be walked, and sometimes, of course, they don't feel well, and so don't want to be walked. Drake was sitting so quietly that I couldn't tell which it was, so I went up to the front desk to get more of the story.

"Hi! I was going to walk Drake, but a sign on his cage says he's on medication. Is it okay to walk him?"

"Oh, that's so sad! We almost lost him. He ate part of a toy and almost died. We had to take him to the emergency room, and he barely pulled through."

"Oh," I said. "Should I—is he okay now?"

"He should be. The medication's just for fever. He's a really friendly guy—I'm sure he'd love to go for a walk."

So I went back to the kennel where Mr. Drake was waiting in overt virtue. I found his harness and got a leash, and went to get him out. He immediately began to vibrate and rub against me in excitement…but not so much excitement that he wasn't able to help me get his harness on. He shoved his head through the loop and stood still. Well, as still as he could.

I bungled it, of course, as I did a lot those early days at the shelter. I couldn't get it snapped, and he got excited. He was jumping around and got kind of stuck in my jacket. I found myself thinking, okay, my first pit bull and he's caught in my arm pit. Let's hope he's as nice as they say.

He was. He calmed down, I worked the snaps, and we got silent Drake out of the cage. He exploded into barks, a kind of "Ar! Ar! Ar!" with his head turning right, center, left that seemed translate as "I'm here! I'm here! I'm here!"

We passed the front desk (where Drake barked more, greeting everyone there), then headed out the front door. There I discovered that he was indeed feeling better, because walking Drake right out of the cage is kind of like walking a springbok antelope. There wasn't so much walking as great leaping bounds.

He liked being out of the cage.
Greg