Lost & Found - Jacqueline Sheehan [20]
“Let’s just wait until we get to my office. There’s not much I can do here,” he said. Sam felt the shoulder and the chest area. He unzipped his green jacket. “This is an arrow. He probably broke it off trying to get it out.” He got in the truck when they landed in Portland and she drove to Sam’s office. They backed the truck up to the front door. Within thirty minutes, Sam and his vet tech had the dog inside and hooked up to an IV.
“He’s being prepped for surgery. Nothing left for you to do here, Rocky. I can get a ride to my car in Portland. Why don’t you go back home and I’ll give you a call tonight.”
Sam and his wife kept one car parked at a friend’s house off island and one car exclusively for the island. Rocky knew that he would save the dog if he could. She had already taken a series of sick cats to him on his one morning per week that he had office hours on the island.
But instead of taking the next ferry back, she drove to Portland and parked the truck in a parking garage to get it off the street. She had breakfast, went to the library, read the newspaper, and used the library’s Internet to check email, none of which she answered.
She returned to Sam’s office in the middle of the afternoon. He rubbed his head as if searching for hair that he used to have, now only a memory of dark fuzz on the top of his head that he clipped short. Sam handed her the tag that had hung around the dog’s neck. It was a piece of octagonal aluminum, painted with yellow reflective paint.
“This would have been a lot more helpful if it had all the rabies information, and the local vet. But it probably helped the owner to see this guy at night. We went ahead and gave the dog a rabies shot along with enough antibiotics to clean out Boston Bay.”
Rocky tossed the dog tag in her hand. “How’s he doing?”
“Thought you’d never ask. Come on back. Be careful. He probably won’t remember you.”
Rocky knew if she were a dog she would run like crazy to get out of a vet’s office. The smells were awful. Even her inadequate human nose could smell fear and pain, loneliness. Sam pushed open the new metal door to the recovery room where postoperative animals stayed. And it smelled like Bob.
The Lab was in the largest cage that they had and he was on his left side. The white bandage around his right front leg made Rocky wince. They had shaved off his fur right up past his shoulder. He lifted his head when Rocky knelt down. Sam opened the door wide. The dog thumped his tail once when Rocky put her hand near his nose.
“He’s well enough to sniff out a good-smelling woman.”
“Sam, you’re too young to be saying stuff like that and get away with it. Old-geezer vets can say things about how women smell and we excuse them and call them cute, old men. Even your lack of hair doesn’t put you into the geezer category.”
“That’s unfair.”
“You’ve been hanging around dogs and cats too long. Don’t start telling your clients how they smell.”
Sam was in his late thirties and had worked long enough so that all his student loans were paid off and he and his wife, Michelle, were finally feeling expansive. Business in the winter was slower with all the summer people gone, but this gave Sam time to flirt with the dog warden.
The dog gave a heave and tried to stand up. When his right leg hit the floor he yelped, but he stood up anyhow, dizzy from the anesthetic, keeping most of his weight on three legs. She remembered Bob telling her how Labs and golden retrievers will overcompensate; if they feel pain, they will grit their teeth and plow on, especially if it meant running or being with their people. She winced at his pain.
“You know they heal faster than we do. He’s a young, strong dog, probably four or five. In a couple of days, we’ll start looking for a foster home for him until we can locate the owner.” The dog turned his head and looked straight at Rocky.
“Be careful, he has just given you the look. When Labs give people the look, it is a powerful, mind-altering drug that makes you think you have been personally locked into