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You See a Dog or Cat on the Side of the Road-Sensible ways to help without getting in over your head

(From Humane Society of the United States) You’re driving your car when you see a dog or cat on the side of the road. With a sinking feeling, you realize they are alone. What should you do?

This is a wrenching scenario for all who care about animals. After all, what if your own pet were standing there? Use our guidelines for providing safe and effective help.

Don’t cause an accident

You can’t help an animal if you become injured in the process. Look in your rear-view mirror before braking, turn on your signal, pull your car completely off the road, turn off the ignition, set the parking brake, and put on the hazard lights. If you have emergency flares, prepare to use them.

Catch them safely

Safety first

A strange, frightened, and possibly sick or injured animal can behave unpredictably. A sudden move on your part, even opening your car door, can spook them and cause them to bolt—possibly right onto the highway. If the animal looks or acts threatening, or if you feel uneasy about the situation, stay in your car.

If possible, restrain the animal. Create a barrier or use a carrier, leash, piece of cloth, or length of rope to keep the animal in the area. Signal approaching vehicles to slow down if you cannot confine the animal, or divert traffic around them if they appear to be injured and is still on the roadway.

Use caution

Use caution when approaching the animal. Should you succeed in getting close enough to capture them, you stand a good chance of being scratched or bitten.

When moving toward the animal, speak calmly to reassure them. Make sure they can see you at all times as you approach, and perhaps entice them to come to you by offering a strong-smelling food such as canned tuna or dried liver.

Lure them into your car

If you are certain you can get help from animal control very soon, try to lure the animal into your car with food, close the door and wait for help. In most cases it isn’t a good idea to attempt to drive somewhere with a strange dog unrestrained in your car; they may become frantic or aggressive. Cats may do the same, as well as lodge themselves under the car seat, and it can be dangerous trying to extract them.

Call for backup

If you’re not able to safely restrain the animal, call the local animal control agency (in rural areas, call the police). Do so whether or not the animal is injured, and whether or not they are wearing an identification tag. Leave your phone number with the dispatcher, and try to get an estimate of how long it may take someone to respond. If possible, stay on the scene to keep an eye on the dog or cat until help arrives. Make sure you report to authorities precisely where the animal is by using road names, mile markers or landmarks.

https://www.humanesociety.org/resources/how-help-stray-pet

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Ollie & Spuds – Chapter 7

An Expanse of Dusky Sky

Over the many days since Ollie and Spuds arrived in the country, they have found there’s much they like. The air is warm. The stream provides easy access to water. Their nest under the rocks is dry and protected. There’s plentiful wildlife that they hunt together. Spuds is the more talented hunter of the two, but she’s generous. There was one occasion, however, when she ate all but the claws, the beak, and some entrails of a bird, which she placed in a tidy pile in front of Ollie. He looked down at the pile and up at Spuds, twice.

On a pre-dawn ramble, when the horizon has a thin streak of light, Ollie and Spuds wander through the nearby town. Only the bakery, with steamy front windows, is busy at this hour. They turn onto a street lined with houses with tidy front gardens. One of the houses is overhung by an enormous flowering tree.

Spuds starts to climb the tree, as cats seem compelled to do. Ollie tilts his head at her, but he dutifully stands guard while she climbs into the high branches. From there Spuds can see most of the town and open countryside. She peers into the window of the house and sees a child sleeping. His mouth is open, his face serene, and he clutches a small bear to his chest. Spuds watches the blankets rise and fall with his breath.

Ollie quietly whines, and Spuds descends the tree and sends Ollie a mind-picture of the sleeping child. Ollie thinks of his children, of watching his family through the sliding glass door, of the sound of their voices­­­. Only once had he been allowed inside the house, and that ended with the man yelling at the children and pushing Ollie into the back yard.

The children came out to play sometimes. They circled their arms around Ollie’s neck and pet him gently with their small fingers. They threw sticks for him to chase, a game he found silly but played because the children seemed to enjoy it. The woman gave him food and water daily, each time stroking his head gently and speaking to him. When the weather turned cold the woman stuffed straw into the doghouse and covered the house with a tarp. On cold nights Ollie borrowed into it, but being a pit bull and therefore having little fur, he shivered through the nights.

Spuds gracefully leaps down from tree. Ollie looks into her green eyes and feels something like peace. They retrace their steps through the town. The baker is now standing outside his shop, his apron speckled with flour, his arms folded across his broad belly. He makes a half-hearted attempt to call to them as they walk away.

•

As the weather warms, the farm fields are striped with orderly rows of lime-green plants and the woods grow dense with undergrowth.

With the canopy of the trees providing cover for an afternoon doze, Ollie and Spuds stretch out side by side. Only the occasional buzzing fly disturbs their lazy afternoon. Their ears flick and noses twitch, but they nap, safe and comfortable.

Ollie awakens first, hungry, and noses Spuds. Spud opens her eyes, rises slowly, stretches, and yawns. 

They walk out of the woods and onto a dirt road with weeds poking up between wheel-worn paths. The sun edges lower toward the horizon, casting warm light on the fields. Spuds scans the fields for the movement of mice while Ollie galumphs along behind her.

Spuds sees a child ahead and stops so suddenly that Ollie bumps into her. Though clueless about why they’re stopping, Ollie raises his hackles as a cautionary measure.

A girl is sitting on the side of the lane twirling a long-tasseled wand of grass. She has curly brown hair and wears an oversize sweater that dwarfs her. She notices the animals and looks at them unblinkingly. Her eyes are turquoise-blue.

Ollie glances at Spuds to take his cue. Spuds continues to look at the girl. The girl wordlessly extends her hand. Ollie takes a few tentative steps toward her, pauses, walks closer, pauses, and sits down just out of reach. The girl keeps her gaze on Ollie’s eyes. He rises, moves toward her again, and stretches out his head toward her. She raises her hand slowly and strokes the top of his head. Ollie holds very still and lets her.

Spuds observes them for a few minutes and then walks toward them. She sits down a few feet away. The girl regards her. The three of them sit in stillness. The setting sun burnishes the animals’ fur. As the sunset colors start of the fade, the girl rises. Ollie looks up at her expectantly. The girl picks at the loose threads on the elbow of her sweater and then looks at them.

“Okay. I’m Tori. I can take care of you, but I can’t let anybody know. Let’s go.” She walks away. Both animals stay put.

“Come on.” Tori moves her arm in a wide, welcoming sweep.

Ollie walks toward the girl. As he closes the distance, he turns to Spuds. She licks a spot on her forearm and joins them. They walk along the dirt road together through the sloping fields, an expanse of dusky sky above them.

Into view comes a white farmhouse with black shutters, a red barn, and several outbuildings. Tori says, “You can hide in the barn, okay?” She nods at them, as though they’ve answered. In a way they have. “There’s a special spot in the barn that’s all mine. A separate door, a little window. It’s just the best place in the world.” She claps her hands together lightly a few times. “I’ve got my favorite books there and paper to draw on, and candy.”

Tori stops at the edge of a line of pine trees, stoops down to their level, and extends the palm of her hand toward them. Spuds allows Tori to pet her. “Okay, follow behind me, and don’t say a word.” She leads them along a path out of sight of the farmhouse and cuts over to the back of the barn. She opens a door and motions them inside. Spuds and Ollie enter and blink in the semi-darkness. The room has stacks of hay bales, a ladder to a loft, a small table by a dusty window, and a chair with stuffing coming out of the arms.

“I’ll be back with some water and food. Aunt Joan and Uncle Jon can’t know about you. They already have a dog and a cat. Once when I asked about adopting more, they said no way.” She sighs in a disapproving way. “I’ll be back. Don’t make any noise, okay? Not a peep.”

She closes the door behind her. Ollie looks at Spuds and wags his tail.

Spuds ascends the ladder to the loft. More hay bales, and the scent of mice. She jumps down onto the table and looks out the dusty window. Ollie, meanwhile, is rearranging loose hay with his snout and paws to make a comfortable bed.

Tori comes in with a bowl of water slopping down the front of her sweater, two bowls tucked under one arm, and paper bags clutched by the neck. She pours the bags’ contents into the bowls. The lovely clattery sound makes both Ollie and Spuds sit up, alert, remembering the sound from their pasts.

“I’m going to put a rock in the door to make sure it stays open so you can go out and do your business. Go into the woods for that—not on Uncle Jon’s lawn. That would be big trouble. I have to go in for dinner. So,” she pauses, twirling a strand of hair around her finger, “I’ll see you tomorrow and I’ll have more food for you.”

She scratches under Spuds’ neck and rubs Ollie’s ears, who leans into her hand. Then she’s gone.

Ollie and Spuds eat quickly. Afterwards, Spuds grooms herself. Ollie watches her from his hay nest, his eyelids growing heavy. They flicker open when Spuds nestles beside him, purring. They sleep as the stars move across the sky.

to be continued

(c) 2024 Carolyn Cott

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Ollie & Spuds – Chapter 6

Think, Think, Think

Spuds wakes up and sniffs the air. It’s warm-cool and carries the smell of green growing things. Feeling hopeful, Spuds stretches and then gently paws Ollie’s cheek to wake him.

Ollie twitches and opens one eye as a warning to Spuds. Spuds pointedly turns away and looks upward, as though the sky is suddenly interesting. Then she leaps onto Ollie’s back. This sends shivers up Ollie’s spine. He sits up abruptly, which sends Spuds careening off of him. She lands gracefully, looks at him expectantly, and paces. We need to go out, now.

Ollie does a down-dog stretch and then shakes. The motion starts at his tail and progresses to his snout, from which spit flies like raindrops. Spuds squints against this.

They walk out the alley and onto the street together and make their rounds: trash cans, dumpsters, the park. Ollie finds half of a bagel beneath a park bench and offers to share it with Spuds, who has no interest. She’s scanning the area under a thicket of shrubs for any movement of mice. No luck. They amble on, skirting a stray dog working on a garbage bag, and slip down a side street.

Ollie smells something delicious. His raises his head, flares his nostrils, and takes off at a trot. Spuds runs to keep up with him. Ollie’s nose leads him to a truck parked in an alley. The door of the truck is rolled up and delicious scents come from within it. They look around, see no one, and scamper up the ramp.

There are cheeses, lots of cheese—in wheels, in boxes. Ollie selects a ripe-smelling cheese wrapped in cloth, holds it between his paws, and tears the wrapping. Together the animals devour it, their snouts covered in soft cheese. Partway through their feast they glance at each other with glee.

So engrossed are they that they do not notice a man approaching the truck. He is unaware of the animals and rolls down the steel door. Ollie and Spuds dash toward the opening. Spuds sees she can make it through the remaining opening, but Ollie is too chesty. She stops. Ollie looks at her, wrinkling his brow. Spuds looks away.

Slits of daylight edge the door. The engine starts and the truck jolts forward. Ollie and Spuds splay their feet, lower themselves to the floor, and look at each other with wide eyes.

As the ride proceeds smoothly they are able to stand up. Ollie is nose level with a round of cheese. He takes a bite of it. Spuds watches and then jumps up on the cheese wheel and eats as well.

They eat until the truck lurches to a stop. They hear voices outside the truck and position themselves at the side of the door, Spuds first, Ollie behind. When a man rolls open the door, they leap from the truck and run, looking back. One of the men stoops down and calls to the animals, extending his hand outward, palm up. The other man says, ”If we can catch them, I’ll drop them off at the humane society on the way back.”

The men walk toward them slowly, calling softly, but Ollie and Spuds sprint toward the woods. There they tuck themselves behind a boulder and peering through leafy undergrowth, watch the men walk away.

When the men are out of sight, Ollie and Spuds look around. The fields that surround the town from which they fled are dotted with clusters of trees and farms and edged by hedgerows. In the far distance, there is another small town. At the bottom of a steep slope behind them they hear a stream and walk toward it, Spuds picking her way gracefully, Ollie sliding downhill in places. They drink their fill.

Ollie lies down, rests his head on his paws, and closes his eyes. Spuds paws gently at Ollie’s snout, and when he opens his eyes she looks pointedly, repeatedly between the deeper woods and Ollie.

Ollie rises with a groan and follows Spuds through the woods. She doesn’t always choose a path suited to Ollie’s size; at places he has to scoot on his belly. They come to an outcropping of rocks protected by thicket of bushes and there lie down. A large animal ambles into view. It chews slowly in a circular way, bending its head toward the earth and raising it, its mouth bristling with grasses. The creature looks at Spuds and Ollie with a long, steady, neutral gaze. Spuds nestles closer to Ollie, and they sleep.

(c) 2024 Carolyn Cott – To be continued

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Every Animal Needs Access to Water in Winter

Once the cold weather sets in, water freezes and feral cats and wildlife lose access to unfrozen water, and suffer. Here is a plug-in water heater: http://bit.ly/48A4TGB

Here is an inexpensive bird bath dish: https://amzn.to/3tzkKqh for the plug-in heater.

On behalf of the animals, thank you.

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Cats Need a Warm Sanctuary Too

Free Shipping • Shelter for Outdoor Cats • https://clawsable.com/

https://clawsable.com/

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Ollie & Spuds – Chapter 5

The Morning Sun on Her Fur

It’s been three days since the cat appeared in his alley. Ollie watches her. She appears to be sleeping, but her ears are angled toward him. Ollie has seen other cats: skinny, scared, hissing cats in other allies, and the cat next door to where he used to live, perched on the wall between the backyards, the tip of her striped tail twitching. Thinking of his backyard, he remembers the children’s high voices, their clear-bell laughter, he feels their chubby arms hugging him. He closes his eyes and sighs loudly.

Spuds studies the dog through half-closed eyes, sensing gentleness, sorrow. Ollie moves suddenly to scratch and Spuds’ eyes fly open. Ollie slows his movements and rests his chin on his forelegs.

Over the next days, the animals watch each other as they come and go from the alley, keeping a respectful distance, keeping an eye on each other. One night, as Spuds makes a wide arc around Ollie and leaves the alley for her nightly hunt, Ollie follows her at a safe distance, hoping she’ll lead him to food.

When Spuds stops to sniff the air, Ollie stops. When she resumes walking, he does too. Spuds turns down a side street and Ollie follows, smelling food. He trots now, closing the distance between him and the scent source, between him and Spuds.

Spuds stops at a door from which the scent of food wafts. Too late she sees two dogs coming toward her. She runs, but one dog is upon her, pouncing and landing on her back. Spuds yowls, maneuvers sideways, and claws at the dog, snagging his lip. He howls and rears back as the other dog advances. Spuds backs up, puffing up, her eyes wide. Off to the side she sees a blur: Ollie, at full run toward the dogs. He charges into them, the force of his weight knocking down one dog and throwing the other off balance. Spuds dashes away. As she runs, she looks back and sees Ollie chasing the dogs the other direction.

Ollie slows his chase and watches the dogs run farther away. He trots back to where Spuds had been attacked, but she is not there, so he retraces his steps to the alley.  

As Ollie turns off the street he sees Spuds in their alley, a dead mouse dangling from her mouth. She walks cautiously toward Ollie, gauging his body language. Ollie sits down. Spuds drops the mouse several feet away and retreats. Ollie walks to the mouse, sniffs her offering, wags his tail once, and eats.

When Ollie is done eating, Spuds walks toward Ollie cautiously, her tail high. She raises her face and blinks at him once, twice. Ollie drops his ears. Spuds takes another step toward him and stretches. Ollie reaches his neck forward, and licks her ear. Spuds shakes off the dog spit.     

Ollie looks toward the pallets and thinks: sleep, but reconsiders. He’s still hungry. He walks out of the alley, and Spuds follows a few steps behind him. Ollie leads them through a maze of streets to a restaurant dumpster. He sits beneath it and looks repeatedly, pointedly, between the dumpster and Spuds.

Spuds calculates the distance to the rim of the dumpster, crouches, and fluidly leaps up, perches on the rim for a second, and jumps in. She emerges with the remnants of a chicken thigh between her teeth and deposits it at Ollie’s feet, which he eats happily. Spuds jumps back into the dumpster for her dinner and then washes her face, swiping repeatedly at the corners of her mouth and drawing her paw slowly along the length of her whiskers. Ollie sighs, anxious to leave.

En route home they pause to drink water pooled beneath a downspout and turn into their alley. As truck rumbles by, Ollie goes behind the pallets to his bed of cardboard, circles three times, and lies down. With his head resting on his paws he looks at Spuds. Spuds saunters toward him and gingerly lies against crook of Ollie’s hind leg. She feels its warmth, and with that comes the memories of her kittens, the old man, the fireside. Purring, she licks Ollie’s leg, flaring her nostrils at the foul taste, and then closes her eyes and drifts toward safe sleep.

•

Ollie and Spuds settle into a routine, surviving together more easily than either had alone. They hunt in tandem often, but each has his own routine. Sometimes Ollie wanders alone to the corner where the man sped away. He looks into the distance toward where he thinks his children are. He remembers their scent, the feel of their hands petting him, the lilting voice of the woman calling to him. When he returns to the alley, he sees Spuds dozing in a shaft of sunlight and feels a sliver of a sense of belonging.

On a full-moon night, as Spuds lies against Ollie’s warmth she thinks of the coziness of sleeping with her kittens. She rises slowly, careful not to waken Ollie, and leaves their alley. She walks to the building where had she left her kittens. Crouching beneath a bush, she casts her mind inside. She senses white empty space; it feels as if they are not there. She focuses her mind on seeing where they are, but her mind conjures nothing. She remembers them as little kitten and tries to imagine how they look now—their legs longer, their orange and ginger stripes defined, their tails no longer stubby and pointed. With this image in mind, she casts her mind out again, searching. In her mind’s eye she sees a forked road. She peers down each fork. One leads to a cluster of houses and trees and fences, the other to open countryside.

As she walks back to the alley, she lets her mind rest in the ease these images give her.

Ollie is just getting up when she arrives—he’s doing his daily down-dog and yawning routine. From under a wrinkled brow he looks at Spuds: where have you been?

Spuds looks at Ollie while picturing her kittens and feeling her longing to see them again. Ollie’s brow smooths and he looks at her kindly. He understands.

To be continued

(c) 2023 Carolyn Cott

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Ollie & Spuds – Chapter 4

With That Picture in Mind, She Could Sleep

Spuds returned to the alley where she had lived with her kittens and sniffed the air, smelling their scents. She walked out the alley and never returned.

She spent her nights wandering, half-heartedly hunting for food, nibbling at tidbits in dumpsters. Spuds slept during the day wherever she felt reasonably safe, tucking herself behind boxes and dumpsters or in a cluster of trees and shrubs in a park. She had difficulty sleeping without her kittens to curl around, but there was one hopeful image that allowed her to drift toward sleep: kind hands taking care of her kittens, giving them food, water, care. Her first thought upon waking was of her kittens: the way the sun shone on their fur, their ticked whiskers alternating white and tan to the tips, their stubby tails, fuzzy and broad at the base and tapering.

One morning when Spuds was searching for a place to sleep, she wandered into a part of the city where women’s high-heeled shoes clicked purposefully on the sidewalk and men’s overcoat tails flew behind them in the wind. Shiny, large cars purred along the street. She sniffed the air and followed the scent to an alley with a fragrant-smelling dumpster. At the end of the alley she noticed a mouse moving along a wall. Noiselessly and slowly, with her ears flattened to disguise herself, she moved toward the mouse, pounced, and missed. Only then did she notice the dog. He was stretching and keeping a wary eye on her.

To be continued

(c) Carolyn Cott 2023

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Ollie & Spuds – Chapter 3

Holding the Gaze of Each One

Spuds hunted by night and slept by day. She moved every few days, eventually coming to the city where she was able to augment hunting with cast-off food in garbage bins.

Spuds came across a band of other cats in a city park and tried to live with them, but they were as prone to fighting as they were to grooming each other. She left and eventually made her home in a partially crushed box in a trash pile on a quiet side street. It was often bitter cold, but there were plenty of mice to hunt. Water was the issue. She learned to drink to excess when it rained and to withstand thirst when it did not. In the coldest weather, the water froze, and Spuds went without water for days. It was difficult not to crave it and sleep was her only escape, but sleep was never deep and sound. Part of her mind remained alert for danger.

By late winter, Spuds’ belly had grown. One morning she birthed four tiny kittens, three orange, and the smallest a pale ginger. These little creatures evoked more love in Spuds than she’d ever felt, even beyond that she felt for the old man.

The need for food increased and so she hunted more. Each time she left her kittens she communicated to them soundlessly through pictures in her mind: do not move, do not mew. She held the gaze of each of them in turn before leaving.

As the kittens grew, Spuds couldn’t keep them sequestered, and they needed to be taught to hunt. They wandered with her on some nights through the streets and alleys searching for food. Twice she had to fight dogs to keep her kittens safe. Once the ginger-colored kitten barely escaped the wheels of a car.

Spuds sensed the time was near when the kittens would wander off to start their own lives. At dawn after a night’s hunt, when they settled down to sleep, Spuds sent them images of the life she once had, of the life she hoped they would find: a fireplace, kind hands setting down bowls of food and water, a soft place to sleep, and safety, safety, safety.

During one of her solo nighttime wanderings, Spuds came upon a building from which came a chorus of meows and barks. Spuds listened. In the varied calls there was mostly complaining and questioning.

Over the next two days she ventured out during the daytime to the building, hid in the shrubbery and watched. A van came and went, from which emerged a large man stuffed into a uniform. His face was always serious. The dogs he brought in were often skinny and haunted looking. The cats he brought in were yowling and flattened to the bottom of their carrying cases. Other people came and went, some teary-eyed and bringing animals in, some bringing animals out and chattering to the bewildered-looking cat or dog.

Spuds gathered her brood over a feast of freshly caught mice. The kittens finished their meal and Spuds crunched through the remains of mouse bones. After they had washed their faces, cleaned their whiskers, and were content, Spuds sent them images of her plan. They paid attention, watching her intently, and then they slept together one final time. Spuds awoke once and looked at her sleeping kittens, memorizing their shapes and the way their breathing moved their bodies gently.

When the moon was high, Spuds nudged the kittens awake. They yawned, stretched, and trailed after her through the streets to the place of meows and barks. Spuds settled them beneath a shrub by the front door and waited. As the sun rose, Spuds licked their faces and looked into their eyes, conveying love. When each kitten held her gaze and blinked slowly, Spuds moved her focus to the next kitten.

People started coming to the building, their purposeful footfalls clicking on the pavement. Spuds saw the man in the uniform coming up the walk. She nudged the ginger-colored kitten out from under the shrub. The kitten meowed. Spuds nudged the other kittens and they followed their sister.

The uniformed man looked down at the kittens and sighed. He scooped up all four of them in his arms at once and then saw Spuds. He called to a woman coming up the walk behind him. She reached beneath the bush toward Spuds, but Spuds panicked and dashed away. The woman ran after her, but Spuds was faster. Before turning the corner, Spuds looked back toward her kittens, watching the last stubby orange tail disappear through the door.

to be continued

© 2023 Carolyn Cott

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I just gave a donation to help. Can you spare anything?

Help Rescue 600 Starving Dogs in Greece

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Ollie & Spuds – Chapter 2

A Well-Shod Foot

The cat’s name is Spuds. The old man who’d found her thought she looked like the color of Yellow Finn potatoes. He’d pulled the mewing, trembling kitten out from under a bramble on a roadside. He stroked her fur with work-rough hands, looked into her gold-green eyes, and took her home.

Spuds had a good life with the old man: She curled up on the rug by the wood stove in winter, dozed on the screened porch in the summer. Spuds loved the old man; they understood each other. But one morning when she went up to his room to inquire about breakfast, something was different. She jumped onto the bed, stood on his chest, and peered at him. She could sense him, but he wasn’t there. She meowed, calling to him. Then she saw a picture in her mind: it was he, and his eyes were blue, dazzling, and loving. Then the image receded and he was gone, as was the sense of him being in the room. Spuds looked at him one last time and left the room.

Four days passed during which Spuds clawed her way through a bag of cat food and found that fresh toilet water wasn’t completely undrinkable.

Then one person came and then a cluster of them—people Spuds had never seen before. They pawed the old man’s possessions, argued with each other, and carried things out of the house. Spuds watched. A woman noticed Spuds and picked her up in one hand, dangling her. Her bangle bracelets clanged together as she walked to the door and dropped Spuds outside. Spuds sniffed the air and turned to go back inside. The woman blocked Spuds’ way with a well-shod foot. “You’re free now kitty, go away.” She closed the door with a thud.

Spuds looked for a long while at the closed door. Then she walked down the driveway. Before turning onto the road, she looked back at the house. The windows glinted in the sun.

to be continued

(c) 2023 Carolyn Cott