Maquinna's Poop du Jour

Tales from the Honeymoon, Part Two

The Dog We Nearly Had To Take Home

On our last day in Nova Scotia, we were driving lazily along the southeast shore towards Yarmouth, scoping out cottages in the gothic style - steeply pointed gables on the second floor, sometimes a single gable and sometimes two or three, and conspiring to find our way inside one to see what the floor plan was like. Craig was especially interested in this as he harbours romantic notions of having such a place one day in Nova Scotia. I wouldn't be disappointed in this, but I'm not sure I'm as convinced yet as he is.

While heading down one minor highway - essentially a glorified backroad with a line painted down the middle, but enough actual pavement to encourage drivers to attack its nicely banked curves and lack of traffic with enough speed and recklessness to qualify for the Nascar circuit - we saw a small dog standing nervously in the middle of the road.

At first, we both thought it was a puppy. The dog wasn't very tall, and seemed to have puppy-like soft white fur, the kind of fuzz new puppies have before they get their adult coats. It seemed oblivious to where it was - something definitely wasn't right. We pulled over to make sure it hadn't been hit, or maybe see if its owner was nearby.

When we got out of the car, we realized quickly it wasn't a puppy, but simply a very small dog. It showed no signs of recognizing that a car had just passed nearby, but as we came nearer and spoke to the dog, it became friendly and excited, and happy to be pet. I felt along its back and hindquarters to make sure it wasn't hurt, and it seemed to be okay. It was only then as I got closer that I noticed its eyes. Nearly obscured by the curling fur around them, I could see that they were a solid, milky green, with crusty green mucus stuck in the fur all around them. My immediate thought was that this dog was blind. A small, blind dog, out here in the middle of the highway.

I picked it up and showed Craig. At first we were both a bit mortified, as though here was a dog who had been terribly neglected. There weren't many houses in the area and we discovered later we had the same fear - that this dog was about to become the third passenger in our already overloaded car. There was no way either one of us could have left it there on the highway.

We went to the nearest house, me cradling the dog, who was quite content to be held, and Craig traipsing through the tall grass to find out if anyone was home. A man came forward and said he didn't know the dog, but that people abandon animals out here all the time. My heart sank.

While they were talking, I could hear a voice calling from the other side of the road. There was a house back there, but it was hard to see past the trees. I hoped it was the dog's owner - and more so, that I wasn't going to have to hand over this unfortunate creature back to someone who was just as likely to set it back out on the road again after we had driven off. Craig and I walked towards the gravel driveway.

A middle-aged woman came towards us. Behind her, what we could see of the place looked neat and well-tended. I asked - 'is this dog yours?' I was so thankful when she said yes. When we got nearer, I asked if the dog could see at all. She said no, she had been blind from birth. They discovered after they got her that the dog had been born without any tear ducts, which was why all the mucus caked up around her eyes. She was surprised to hear where we had found her, and said she never ventured that far away from the house. She seemed very relieved, and invited us in for tea. Craig and I had just had breakfast, however, and we declined the invitation, heading back for our car.

As we walked back along the highway, we caught a better glimpse of the woman's house through the brush. A single-gabled gothic cottage, nicely proportioned, center staircase, appearing to be in the middle of getting a new coat of paint. Before we knew it, we were driving back up the driveway, hoping we could get a peek inside.

The little dog - whose name we now knew to be Alexa - barked excitedly when we knocked on the door, and ran out and lapped our bare legs when the woman opened it. We told her how we had seen the house from the road, and why we were interested, and asked if she would mind if we took a few photos and could see the layout? She was happy to oblige us - and in that way Craig got his wish to get inside one and see how the center staircase opened up to the landing under the gable, and how much more spacious the rooms were than we expected them to be. Alexa stayed at the bottom of the stairs - she knew better than to try them, without sight - and barked at us the whole time we were up there.

posted by Maquinna @ 3:55 p.m.