Apparently, that's a thing. I know, because I seem to have come down with a classic case. Examine the symptoms and history:Straydar: n. (strā-dahr): The unintentional ability to spot stray or unaccompanied dogs or cats when driving, walking or during one's lunch hour at work, prompting the need to always have a leash and pet treats in the auto. This may also include the ability to have pets brought to one by others who are aware one has this ability. There is no cure once one becomes afflicted with "straydar".
- I suspect I inherited the gene from my dad, who once found a litter of three puppies at the laundromat of our apartment complex when I was 4 or 5. It was a Saturday morning, I was watching the Smurfs, and my dad walked in with a box of puppies. I was giddy. Of course, they ended up being taken "to the pound," but that's how it began.
- My own straydar seems to have lay dormant for most of my life, until I adopted Lucy, a lhasa apso from some friends when they could no longer care for her.
- When her life ended sooner than it should have years later, my then-boyfriend purchased a puppy from a pet store, over my staunch objections to the likelihood that the puppy came from a puppymill. Turns out, he was from a classic puppymill, but that's another story for another time. Regardless, when then-boyfriend dumped me and ever so responsibly realized "wait, I can't take care of a dog!" I won custody. That is how my beloved Truman came to be mine.
- Years later, I was living with my then-fiance (now husband, Bryan) and Truman, when a frightened little poodle-mix emerged from the woods across the street from our house. Fate, along with a little human and animal intervention, saw to it that we took her in and cared for her, and eventually, she joined our family too. Harriet's full story is here.
- I came to realize the full extent of my love for dogs, and my passion for helping them, so I became a volunteer at SICSA, a local organization that is just plain awesome.
- One day my sister called me, having found a tiny Maltese wandering busy streets and getting honked at. My sister was leaving town so dropped off the dog with me. The dog was clearly someone's pet, well cared for, but without a collar and with an unregistered microchip. But knowing where the dog was found, I used my super-librarian skills, mixed with a little facebook stalking prowess, and tracked down the owners. They came to pick her up within less than 6 hours of her arrival.
- I fostered two amazing and adorable tiny puppies, Mo and BB, for three weeks. No sooner had wonderful adoptive homes for them (just this past weekend) do we arrive at the present situation...
- Yesterday.
We were meeting friends for breakfast at a restaurant called Tank's near downtown. It was raining, and as I pulled up, we saw a little Pomeranian hobbling down the street. He approached people without fear, but as we got closer, could see he was severely matted and looked worse than Harriet had when we found her. While Bryan & I were trying to decide what we could do, some awful woman entering Tank's started hounding us about what we were going to do, saying the dog was going to get hit by a car and we had better take her, and of course she couldn't take the dog, but demanded we do something now. I had just gotten a new car and didn't have a blanket in it yet, so I put the dog in my trunk to avoid flea infestation. (This sounds bad, but the dog seemed quite comfortable and safe.) I drove it home, penned him in in the garage with blankets, water, and food, and headed back to breakfast.
He's still in the garage, and I think he's injured, and I've been trying all day to figure out how to get him the care he needs. I'm still working on this, so I will continue the updates.
UPDATE: After this post, I ended up changing the name of this blog, from "Help for Harriet" to "Straydar."
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