Grammaticaster

I am having a crisis of conscience. 

This afternoon my wife and I traveled to Clay County, Alabama to visit where her family is from and where they used to hold their family reunions and so forth.  While trying to find an old cemetery along a dirt road outside of Lineville, we stopped to take pictures of a deer out in a field.  When I was about to drive off, this little dog appeared about 40 yards or so behind the car.  Of course, I got out of the car and tried to get it to come to me.  I whistled and slapped my leg, he ambled up to me – hesitant but friendly. 

When he got close, I saw how horribly thin he was.  He looked like some sort of a beagle/pit bull mix, and he was emaciated.  He was all head and ribcage.  He walked on wobbly legs that looked too big for his tiny body.  There was blood on his neck and ear, but he didn’t act like he was hurt.  I think maybe he had torn his ear in a fight or else he’d killed something.  Who knows.  I tried not to touch the blood, but I stuck out my hand and he nuzzled it and licked it.  As I stood there trying to think of what to do – whether I needed to help him, take him somewhere, if I had anything in the car to feed him – his little legs wavered a little and he just sat down beside my leg and looked up at me with those huge, sad, brown dog eyes.  I stroked his head (carefully… I hadn’t totally lost my senses; I didn’t want him to bite me out of fear or pain or you know – rabies or anything), and he let me pet him.  After a few minutes I told him goodbye and that I was sorry I couldn’t help him. 

Back at the car, I told my wife I felt like I needed to do something, but she made the good point that the dog might belong to somebody and that this was poor, rural Alabama after all.  I understand that.  I don’t want to take somebody’s dog.  I’ve met people who have a holier-than-thou, I-know-better-than-you attitude when it comes to pets.  Ordinarily, I would have just patted the dog on the head and driven away without giving it too much of a second thought.  But this little guy was so thin.  He was obviously not being taken care of, even if he did belong to some hick or other out there in the woods somewhere.  But, having other places to go and (selfishly and embarrassingly) not wanting to inconvenience my wife or take us away from the outing we had planned, and not knowing anywhere around there where we could have taken him anyway, we just left him. 

I tried my best to tell myself it was the only thing to do.  We couldn’t have put a bloody, possibly diseased, potentially vicious animal in our car and carted it back to Birmingham.  And in any case, it probably belonged to someone and we’d be stealing someone’s pet.  We drove back to the main road and stopped again to look for the cemetery (which we never found, by the way).  We walked around a bit, and having no luck returned to the car.  Now about 80 yards back, the little dog was sitting in the middle of the dirt road watching us.  He’d followed my car.  It tore my heart out to drive away. 

So look.  Did I do the right thing, or do I need to go back out there tomorrow and try to find him?  I know I have a soft spot for dogs, and I might just be letting my emotions run amok over my common sense.  But on the other hand, this is a living creature that might be in distress.  If I can save his life, or can make his life better or happier, shouldn’t I do that?  Am I not obligated to do that? 

Please forgive the hastily, clumsily written blog entry.  I normally spend at least a little time editing these things, but I wanted to go ahead and post this so that if anyone out there has any suggestions, you can let me know.  Thanks for reading.