On November 1, 2001, Jack was lost when his owner was taken by ambulance to the
hospital.
His owner did not make it out of the hospital and his daughter, an Airedale
breeder herself, was heartbroken at the loss of both her beloved father and
his adored Airedale. But, she lives in Seattle and had to return to her family
and a new litter of Airedale puppies.
Luckily for Jack, a member of the Airedale Rescue Network lived right in his
home town. The neighborhood where Jack lived has strict CC and R's
against posters and is a nightmare of mazes of street ... virtually a town unto
itself. Rusty the Rescuer returned day after day to walk those streets, hand out
fliers, ask people to post the fliers anywhere that dog people might
congregate and re-apply the posters that had been torn down. She ran ads,
she contacted every shelter and breed rescue in the Valley. This is one
determined lady!
There was no picture of Jack available, so the call was put out to the Airedale
e-mail lists for a body double to fill in on the posters. A picture of an
Airedale of the right size, conformation and stage of grooming was required.
Lester MacInnes is
pleased to have been able to help a fellow Airedale in trouble. Lester belongs
to Canadian Airedale lovers Cam and Lana MacInnes. It turns out that Jack is
originally from Canada! It truly is a small world.
On November 13th, the hard work paid off. Rusty relates:
It seems Jack likes the water and he managed to
cross (safely) a six lane, very busy, thoroughfare
to an area behind a grocery store where there are
little lakes (man made ones out here in the desert).
A young girl (about 12) was walking to the grocery
store and saw Jack. She called to him and he came
running; so she took him home with her. Her home is
on one of the lakes in a gated community. From what
I could gather from the father, it took him a little
while to convince his daughter to do " the right
thing" and they got my phone number from the ad I
was running in the newspaper and the young lady
called me and asked me to identify Jack (good thing
I knew about the tattoo). Long story short (as
Jack is standing here with both feet on my mouse pad
while I try to type), I went and picked up Jack. I
answered all her questions about where Jack was from
and where he was going and "what about Airedales?"
So, Jack will have a "holiday" here on the ranch for
a few days ... chasing rabbits and socializing with
many dogs before he travels on to Seattle. He's a
laid back dude like my Monte so he should enjoy. Currently he is
watching the bird intently while the
bird BARKS at him (the bird is a cockatiel named Spike and has numerous
versions of
"the bark" so can entertain all breeds).
I am a strong believer of "putting my attention" on
something and making it go right. With the help of
everyone on this list and others, that made for a
lot of attention; and having gotten the correct
viewpoint -- going from "Jack's missing" to "Jack's
on walkabouts" -- really helped (I mean that
sincerely). Here is how I got that thought . . .
Shirley (from England) as in Callidale, used the
term "walkabouts" and Marc gave me the explanation /
definition for it, and the part of "destined to
return" just made me decide that Jack wasn't missing
-- he was on walkabouts! From that moment on I felt
better about the whole thing and I knew it would
turn out okay ;^)
To all . . . Jack says Hi! as he stands here in my
arm pit, snuffling my ear and looking for pets while
I type, and to Lester (via Kirk), the body
double, you're Great !
Rusty, Jack
Monte and CeCi
QuarterMoon Ranch
