Wrap 5/5
Someone asked me the other day why I would drive all the way down to Indianapolis for a Petco day. Granted the drive time is two and half hours one way. I stay for four hours sometimes five if I get there early enough to help set up or tear down the event. I don’t get paid; the gas to drive down there comes out of my own pocket. I spend my entire day off…working. I am either setting up, tearing down, handling a dog, walking a dog, helping get pictures of a dog, maybe doing a transport run back to the kennel or a food run for the volunteers. Once I even had to leave Petco to go meet a transport south of Indianapolis because a leg had fallen through.
Not very much fun…or is it? That is what I have to ask myself. Sometimes I don’t have an enjoyable day and I am beat when I get home. Other times I have a blast and wish the day could have gone on longer. But my pleasure isn’t what Petco day is about. It is about the dogs and what we can learn from them and about each other.
Sometimes action is more about coincidence or fate maybe than about intention. Several of my foster dogs have met their future parents at Petco. If I had not been there that day or they had not needed to buy dog food, a toy, whatever they would have never met my foster. 
One of my foster dogs actually saved my both my life and my house. Koda shut off the gas to my boiler on winter day. When I woke up the next morning it was very cold. That was when I realized the boiler wasn’t working and I called the heater repair guy. After examining my boiler, he asked me who had shut off the gas. He said that the boiler had malfunctioned at the electrical control and fried itself. If the gas been running, it would have blown the house up and me along with it. I remember Koda barking me before I went to sleep, and he kept running into the utility room. He wouldn’t come out and I finally decided to let him sleep in there if that was what he wanted. He was the only one in there and the gas was on when I went to bed. My agreeing to foster him and working out his transport north was the only thing that had saved his life and in return he saved mine.
A little girl came up to me and asked if she could pet Solomon. Her face lit up as she felt his soft fur under her fingers. A smile spread across her face and she looked up at her parents. Amazingly enough, her parents begin to smile too. For that moment her entire family was just a little better, a little happier. These people were strangers, but for that moment they shared the smile that Solomon brought to my face, and we were not so different.
As individuals, no one at NLSDR could accomplish all the tasks it takes save as many lives as the rescue does. The volunteers come from all walks of life; many of us would have never known any of the others existed. But the dogs brought us together, united us, and made each of just a little bit better. Petco is the best example I can think of to demonstrate this. It’s not always fun, but every week ten to twenty volunteers come and donate their time because at heart they are not all that different.
