HEllo Mike,   
      
   On Thu 2011-Oct-27 21:22, MIKE ROBERTS (1:261/1381) wrote to Matt Munson:   
      
   -> The little stray has a home now.  At least for a brief moment he was loved   
   MR> and   
   -> he does have a home now.   
      
   MR> So  Sad, but touching Matt... And God bless those people.. I had a   
   MR> similar experience as I was working one day, and I absolutely could   
   MR> not stop. But I must have cried for almost an hour, driving and   
   MR> thinking of the poor dog I saw get hit and left for dead. I wanted   
   MR> to stop so bad, but couldn't. This poor dog was fortunate at least   
   MR> to the effect that she could and did stop. Tugs at the heart   
   MR> strings.   
      
   IF anybody has messages going back to 2007 in this echo   
   you've seen my tale of how we adopted Roxy, our first   
   Rottweiler off the streets of NEw ORleans.   
      
   Roxy was purchased as a puppy by a street dealer, to be his   
   bluff.  sHe was with him when he was gunned down in the   
   usual turf wars that happen among such folks.   
      
   Roxy went to his cousin, who fought pit bulls.  Roxy refused to fight, so he   
   gave her her "freedom" and turned her out on the mean streets of the city.   
      
   My lady and I managed fie apartment buildings in inner city   
   NEw ORleans at the time.  THese were part of a federal   
   program, and of course were animal free zones.   
      
   My office and recording studio was in our home, the complex   
   offices elsewhere.  My lady did the bulk of day to day   
   management, I mainly helped out with some maintenance chores around the place,   
   and operated my own business.  HEnce I was home a lot during the day.  Roxy   
   got whatever food she could scrounge or beg, her sources of water were puddles   
   along the curb.  During the afternoons while working at my desk I'd   
   often bring Roxy in, give her clean water to drink, some   
   leftovers from dinner the night before, or part of my lunch.   
      
   Kathy and I saw her get hit by a car, not fatally, only   
   minor injuries, but it was then that we decided since the   
   complex was now under a new management company and that   
   hadn't even been settled yet (we knew her benefits package   
   was probably by the boards) we'd do a little bit of truth   
   bending.  After all, you can't refuse the blind man his dog   
   guide .  Hence, I put a regular harness on Roxy,k and she was well enough   
   behaved that she could pass as guide dog.   
   By the time the dust settled with the management company,   
   here was a clean well groomed ROttweiler that appeared to be trained at one of   
   the nation's finest guide dog schools,   
   although she was 10 years old, and had never seen guide work or such a harness   
   until I strapped one on her.   
      
      
   NEgotiations having failed to recoup Kathy's medical   
   benefits, let alone none of the others, we moved on, and I   
   was renting a place across the lake in Slidell, and working   
   on negotiations to buy it on contract when Katrina struck.   
   My lady and I were the communications volunteers for   
   University and Charity hospitals in NEw ORleans, and ROxy   
   was left outside ona cable, where she could get under the   
   house for shelter, a dutch oven full of dry dog food left,   
   another outside where it could catch rain water, and there   
   was plenty of that.   
      
   THis meant she survived the trees crushing the house, and   
   the resulting house fire when the electricity was   
   reactivated a week or so later.  I was still arranging to   
   return to my home from San Antonio when this happened.  Roxy was rescued by a   
   friend of mine before the humane society   
   came to put her down, taken to a vet/boarding kennel, given   
   her shots which were due the week of the storm, and we   
   retrieved her when we came back to get some of my property   
   from the hospital radio room, and anything which survived on the property that   
   was mine after the fire.  SHe lived with   
   us two years here in Tennessee before succumbing to multiple strokes.  Partial   
   paralysis and incontinence meant she was   
   no longer able to really function, so the vet did the   
   merciful thing.  I stood holding her head as she expired.   
      
   A plaster casting of one of her paw prints hangs in our   
   living room along with a  by 7 picture of her.  We now have   
   a rott we raised from a pup we got that next summer.   
      
   Regards,   
              Richard   
   ---   
    * Origin:  (1:116/901)