Some of you (Cybergal in particular) may know that my wife and I breed Jack Russell Terriers and are dog lovers in general. When I go on my occassional "road trip", I usually take one of our "Jacks" with me.

I am currently on a trip from Louisiana to Pasco,WA. I brought one of our Jacks, Angel (she derived her name from the fact she was born on Cristmas Day), on this trip with me. This past Friday night/Saturday morning at about 2:00 a.m. we stopped at a gravel turn off in the middle of nowhere on US 82 in TX. I took Angel out for a walk so she could do her business. After walking about 30 yards into the weeds, Angel perked up at attention. I turned to look and faintly saw some movement in the weeds.

I just figured it was a rabbit or a cat,and being a smarta##, I said "here kitty kitty". To my amazement, I got an answer. It wasn't a "meow" but rather a very faint and forced "yip". I walked towards the area where the dog was, squatted down, and coaxed the dog to come to me. I was amazed, shocked, appalled, name the word. Not only was this just a tiny little puppy(eight to ten weeks in my estimation), it was what appeared to be a full blooded Jack!

As I previously stated, we were in the middle of nowhere with no signs of civilization anywhere close. This puppy was obviously dumped! It was also obvious that it had been living on it's own for quite some time. It was severly malnourished, dehydrated, covered with ticks, and worst of all, had been BADLY abused by someone! The pup has severe burn scars all over the underside of it's body and could barely walk(has rear leg/hip injury). Of course being the dog lover I am, I scooped her up and carried her to my truck. When I sat her down, she immediately found the food and water dish and ate and drank for the longest time. Meanwhile, I grabbed my flashlight and went to investigate further. I figured out that she had been sustaining herself by eating from a small pile of grain that apparently "leaked" from a hopper that had parked in this turn off where we were.

I spent the next several hours removing ticks from her and cleaning her up. Would you believe that after everything this poor girl has been through, her tail never stopped wagging? She has a wonderful personality but is just a little bit skiddish(can you blame her?).

I spent all day saturday in the Oklahoma City/Amarillo areas working the phone to rescue organizations and vet offices trying to get some help. The few people that did answer their phone all told me the same thing; "drop her off at the animal shelters". I wasn't asking for charity. I would have paid for their services and all I was asking was for someone with some veterinary expertise to examine her. Well, the way I see it, this dog is a fighter and managed to survive until god made our paths cross. NO WAY IN HE## was I going to drop her off at a "kill" shelter. She lived this long, she deserves a chance at a "good" life.

It is now three days later. She has been named "Grace". Right now Grace is curled up comfortably on my feet right here on my bunk. Angel is being a great "mother" as usual and is really helping me take care of Grace. Grace will finish this trip with me and will go see our vet when I get home to TN.

I wasn't looking for another dog as we already have too many(is there such a thing?lol). But if we can't find a GOOD home for Grace, she will always have a home with our family. I do believe in divine intervention and I firmly believe that god intervened in my life on Saturday July 28th,2007 by allowing Angel to find Grace.

I am sorry this post was so long, but I felt ALL of the details were pertainant to the story. To all of you BELIEVERS and DOG LOVERS; Please say a prayer for Grace that she regains her health and can lead a wonderful doggy life.

Eskimo, email or PM me and I will put you in contact with someone who can help find a rescue for "Grace". I am talking about a REAL rescue, not one that will direct you to the nearest KILL-Shelter.

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I'll never understand why people dump off animals and leave them to die. We live in a farming area and have had so many dogs, cats, and puppies dumped here over the years. One year I was driving the back roads into town and saw what I thought was a badger up ahead on the road. I was still a long ways off and the way it waddled/walked couldn't really tell. Turned out it was long haired puppy app. 10 weeks old, someone had thrown into the ditch filled with water next to the road. It was so caked with heavy mud it couldn't walk, but was dragging itself. I took him home, put him in the tub and kept working the hard dried mud out of his coat. He became very ill and all this was going on while I was right in the middle of my daughers wedding plans for the next day. My Aunt and Uncle took him to the vet and he's now had a happy healthy home with them for over 6 years. So far we've been very fortunate in finding the strays and abandoned pups homes, but wow does it take alot of phone calls!

God bless you for taking care of Grace

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"Tude"

" A good attitude will get you through almost anything"

Eskimo if I wasn't so far away I would take her in a heart beat.

Truly SAD that animals are treated like garbage by humans who should be forced to go through what she has to go through.

I think you are a wonderful person for taking care of her and I don't care what anyone says...YOU got a BIG HEART and it's in the right place!

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I appreciate the gesture roadkill. I wasn't really looking for a resue but rather someone to help me clean her up and give her some medical attention. Since I have found her, I have given her some basic medical care and have gotten some good food into her system. She appears to be doing much better now. I think she will be fine to go another 4 or 5 days until she can see our vet.

We have fostered dogs in the past for RUSSELL RESCUE and are quite capable of taking care of her. We have plenty of land for her to play on in safety, plenty of other dogs to play with, and plenty of human love to give. I will try to find her a good forever home, but to be honest I may not look TOO hard. Like I said, I believe in divine intervention and think that it may just be God's will that I keep her.

I will keep you guys and gals posted on her progress and also what the vet has to say. On behalf of Grace, thank you all for your kind words and thoughts.

I saw another one today on my way into town Someone dumped this puppy (close to adult age) app. 1 mile from town, small mixed breed and very skinny. I was on the CR and he/she was on the other side of the barditch trotting along the fence line. There's not much of a way it could get into the fence on that side because the weeds are too thick in this one area. It's over 5 acres of pure iron weeds etc. This is the first time I've not been able to coax one into coming to me. I stopped my car in the road just a tad in front of him, got on my knees and kept calling him, at one point I thought he/she was going to come over then as it got parallel to me it screeched and took off. I did try to get to it but it went around and down the turnrow right into all the weeds. I feel horrible and can't stop worrying about it now. I'm going back by tomorrow to try again, if its still there. Someone has really been mean to this poor little dog for it to run just from my voice that way..........

Thanks for listening, hopefully tomorrow it'll come out somewhere it can be seen.......

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"Tude"

" A good attitude will get you through almost anything"