SAVAGE

Briefly while I worked for the power company, my job was as a collector. Fortunately this was just stop gap in my 19 year career with them. I was the nasty person who cut your power off if you couldn't pay your bill. Being a Susie soft heart, this was not my job of choice. I would always try to work with people to keep the power on, stretching company policy beyond the limits.

Sometimes the people had moved out and I would just turn off the power. I would have welcomed those times for I wasn't exposed to sad human stories. However, they often left their pets behind, Once I actually found 3 preschool aged children abandoned. That deserves its own post. When I wasn't leaving people in the dark, I had to observe the gross desertion of responsibilities way too often. I was not in my element.

When I drove up to the house, I knew they were gone but went through the motions of knocking on the door. With no answer, I wrote out the cut off notice and went around back to cut off the power. This is what I found.

This dog had no will to live. The picture is old and not very good as it was taken with a company camera, but you can see the total dejection. He was starved, no water, wormy, ate up with mange and blood ran from cracks in his feet and around his face. His skin was very fragile. Just touching him could cause bleeding and seepage.His smell was disgusting but I knew I couldn't leave him nor could I notify Animal Control for they would just euthanize him.

I asked the neighbors what the story was and they said that the family had been gone for several days. They figured the dog would die as he had been sick for quite a while. I asked what his name was and they said,"Savage." He sure didn't match his name. He just didn't care. He was completely done with this world but I had to try.

Savage became my second dog rescue after Dutchess. I had previously found two "left behind" cats. I dropped him off at the vet's and finished my work day. When I went to pick him up that afternoon, I got the bad news. Savage was under a year which was good but he had severe Demodectic Mange, often called Red Mange. This is often a death sentence for dogs if untreated and at that time there was no really good treatment. The only cure the vets offered was a topical mixture they concocted that was so toxic you could only treat 1/3 of the dog at a time. If the whole dog were treated at one time, it would kill him.

So I gathered up the poison, antibiotics, worm meds and a really stinking dog. I divided him into thirds and started treatment. It took two months of constant treatment but finally he turned the corner. Hair grew back as did his personality. He became slavishly devoted to me though I had done nothing but hurt him for months with the treatments. But amazingly, he got better

This was an almost cured Savage with his best friend(also a left behind pet). He just had a touch of mange left on his belly and legs.

I am so tempted to give this story a happy ending. I thought a little lie won't hurt. No one will know but me and it would make a better post. But that wasn't what happened. This is what did. Savage was eventually totally cured and moved with me when I left West Palm for Okeechobee. At this stage of my career, my rescues were also my pets. The number was manageable. Eight was enough plus Jesse and Prince.

I had fenced my property at my new home and had been living there for many months. One day my mail man Frank ,who was a new friend, came to the office to give me the bad news. Savage had evidently dug out under the fence and found his way to the busy highway not far from my property.

Frank had found Savage on the highway where he had been hit by a car and he was dead. I couldn't believe it. Besides the pain of the loss I also thought of all that time and work, the misery he had gone through, and he was now gone. It was not fair for he only had about one good year in his sad young life.

Why had I even bothered?? I guess I bothered because I couldn't not bother. And he did have that one good year.