What Does Thankful Mean?

Nine dogs were gathered in a large sunlit room on Thanksgiving Day:  Ziggy, a big black Labrador; Zoe Peach, also Lab, yellow and huge; Percy a chubby panda; Pippi, nervous-nellie of poodle extraction; Peedee, a ditch-dog, one blue, one brown eye, and peanut brown coat full of dinks and scars; Rudy, blond shaggy sheepdog; then the babies, three-legged Nemo and Dora the intrepid Beagle, both four months old and rambunctious; and finally, old man Snoopy, one day out of the shelter with dreams of a forever home.

The dogs’ human guardians had taken them for a good run and gone to the Thanksgiving Day Blessing for another special pack of canines with an important job in that very sacred place called Hitchcock Woods. 

Ziggy started it when he gave a big rumbling sigh as he stretched long on the bed and said, “I wonder what it all means, thanks-giving?  Or Blessing?”

Zoe, too lazy to lift her head, her stomach full of breakfast and no treats in the offing, just heaved a big bored sigh, as if to say, “Who cares?”

Eight years earlier, Ziggy, then Zoe, had come as tiny puppies straight from their mothers to the home they now shared.  But the other seven dogs all looked at Ziggy in wonder, then at each other with knowing.

Pippi and Percy were thinking of how they had been left outdoors until their coats matted and bleached in the southern heat holding fleas and filth next to their tormented skin. 

“I give thanks for the groomer, even if she makes me smell funny.  A good roll takes care of that!” Pippi said, she and Percy trying to forget the meaning of neglect. 

“You would have to know what real hunger is,” said Peedee.  He had been found in the road, all eyes, bones and vermin.  The hair had never returned to the places where the ticks had been detached.  He had to learn how to eat like a dog who could count on another meal.

“I remember the way her eyes lit up when she saw me in the shelter cage,” mused Rudy, a dreamy romantic.  “The concrete tormented my bad hips.  Now blessed means a good doctor.”

“Me, too!” cried Nemo.  A birth defect had deprived him of a left foreleg. “I give thanks for being special and blessed with all the help I needed.”  

“I almost died!” squealed Dora, who had been a tiny sick orphan abandoned at the shelter, passed into foster care, then severely injured.  Her battle with pneumonia had lasted more than a month.

Snoopy was quiet.  He had just been brought from the shelter the day before.  He knew the softness of the bed.  The food was plentiful and good.  It was quiet.  He could go out whenever  he needed.  The smell of the Woods still filled his brain. 

“Thanksgiving means being grateful for this home,” he told Ziggy, “And I pray you never lose it.  It is you all who are blessed.”

FOTAS Volunteers work with the AIKEN COUNTY ANIMAL SHELTER, 411 Wire Road.  For more information, contact “info@fotasaiken.org” or visit FOTAS on line at www.fotasaiken.org

Aiken County Animal Shelter:  “By the Numbers”

For Nov. 14th thru 20th    

Dogs taken in: 58

Cats taken in: 19

Dogs adopted: 12

Cats adopted: 2

Dogs euthanized: 22

Cats euthanized: 18

Aiken County Shelter “Pets of the Week”

SNOW – What a perfect addition to the holidays.  Snow!  Only $20 and he’s yours!

JEWEL – 6 YRS.  A blue-and-brown-eyed special pet who had to be left behind in a move.  Please give her back a loving home.