CHAPTER FIVE FINDING SAMANTHA—DESPERATION COMES IN MANY FORMS (22nd installment, Scruggs and Samantha, by Mary de la Pena)

CHAPTER FIVE

FINDING SAMANTHA—DESPERATION COMES IN MANY FORMS

(22^nd  installment, Scruggs and Samantha, by Mary de la Pena)

The wait was interminable. Where was Scruggs? Was he safe? Had he been put down by mistake? With Twink gone nothing seemed secure. I was desperate.

While I waited I pondered how I should handle the issue of the missing kitten with my husband.  Bad news never got better with age, so I quickly dialed his cell phone.  But just as quickly it rolled over to voicemail.  I snapped the phone shut, hesitant to leave that kind of message without some sort of human contact.  It left me with nothing to do but wait for the kennel gate to open.

Those fifteen minutes were the longest minutes in a span of time I had ever spent.  I felt as if time had stopped.  In many respects it was the same as waiting for a verdict in a jury trial.  The outcome was no longer in my hands.  I had done everything I could.  The fate of the animals was in the hands of God.

Despair and fear settled like a heavy cloak on my shoulders.  I could barely breathe from the weight of uncertainty.  With nowhere to go I had a front row seat to the parade of animals brought by truck and individuals.  All of the surrendered animals were placed in holding cages at the front of the shelter directly across from where I paced.

The saddest scene was a woman in her mid-thirties.  She came in holding a small dog that was all wiggles and kisses.

“Here,” she said, handing the dog to the intake worker behind the counter.  “It was running loose in my neighborhoods and its gots no collar, no nothing. You takes it, I can’t keeps it, okay?”

As she was saying this, the dog was giving her kisses all over her face and clearly there was a ring around the dog’s neck where at one time a collar must have rested.

The worker looked at the wiggling dog and then leveled a stare at the woman.  “It will be a twenty-five-dollar surrender fee to take your dog, ma’am,” she said.

“Why?  It’s not my dog.  I tolt you I found it loose in my neighborhoods.”

The worker looked hard at the wiggling dog in the woman’s arms.  It was fat, well cared for, and clearly not a street dog.  But there was also something in the woman’s face that made the worker just shrug and start the paperwork.  But, as she began asking the questions of where the dog was found and how she found it, the shoulders of the woman surrendering the dog began to slump as she held the dog tighter and tighter.  Tears began to form in her eyes, and her voice became shaky.

Finally, with the paperwork completed, the woman signed the bottom of the surrender form.  Handing the dog to the worker and quickly walking away, she left without a backward glance.  But the dog began to whimper, and then barked a plaintive cry as it wiggled and cried, almost escaping the worker, clearly trying to follow its owner as she walked away.  

I stood frozen, watching, unable to avert my attention from the scene as it unfolded.  I wanted to run after the woman and berate her for lying about her dog, just leaving it like unwanted trash.  But just as I thought I could get my feet to respond to my emotional desire to run after the woman, the gates to the kennel area opened. Scruggs!  I had to find Scruggs!

I bolted to the large-dog kennel, running hard to kennel 83, praying as I went.  Skidding to a stop, I was faced with an empty kennel.

Oh, my God!  The kennel was empty.  Scruggs was gone!

I grabbed the chain-link gate and shook it in my anger and frustration, sobbing my dog’s name, “Scruggs, oh, God, Scruggs, I am so sorry!”

I sank to the floor, closed my eyes, and wept, resting my head against the fence.

As I sobbed, I felt a tentative pressure against the top of my head, then a quick swipe of a tongue.  I opened my eyes and stared into the whiskered face of a laughing, golden-haired dog.

Scruggs was alive!

It was only as I thrust my fingers through the gate to rub his face did I notice the trap door from the kennel to the dog run was open. He had obviously been outside in the dog run area of the kennel.

Relief overwhelmed me.  The previous tears of disappointment became tears of joy and relief.  My golden boy was safe. But a kitten, what was I going to do about a kitten?  Twink was gone.  Would my Prince Charming be content with a different cat in our home?