Friday, August 20th 2010

A few Thursdays back the Pilgrim Monument here in P’town turned 100. It is the largest free-standing, granite structure in the U.S. and it is P’town’s claim to fame… among other things.

I knew there would be fireworks, but thought that by turning the radio on high and the AC on loud it would smother the noise for PD. At 9:30 I was serving one of my last tables and had a feeling that I should go home quickly and check on the dog. I was 3 minutes away by bike and my boss was kind enough to let me go.

As you might have imagined PD was gone. He had managed to flip his crate upside down and separate the walls to escape and push open the back door (by the grace of God I did choose to lock it, otherwise there would have been extensive damage done to the apt before he finally managed to get out, which he would have).

I returned to work only to say that I had to go and search for the dog. The town was packed; I have never seen so many people and I knew that the increase in population would only serve as a terrible obstacle. I asked anybody who was standing outside if they had seen a white dog run by. A couple of people said they had seen a “wild dog” tear through there about 20 minutes before. Shit. I knew what state he was in and the direction he was heading toward was bad. I got into my truck to look for a body on the side of the road… I gave up realizing that I had to go home and wait. PD has tags and angels so I was comforted in trusting that would take care of him.

At 3AM I got a phone call asking me if I was the owner of a dog named PD. 10 minutes later he arrived in the back of a Honda with some hippie dudes who were brave and kind enough to pick him up. He was filthy, scared and covered with scratches. I bathed him, welcomed him home and we went to bed. It was the next morning during our walk that I noticed a limp… upon further investigation I could see that the pads beneath his paws were worn down with chunks cut out of the larger portion of the pad.

My vet got us in and bandaged 3 of PD’s paws. I was instructed to keep them really dry and was given IV bags to keep the paws protected. That so did not last. After a weekend of the bandages and that dreadful collar they came off. For one day I had to keep them covered yet still allow air to get to them. This was a challenge as a simple sock was not doing the trick. After some drainstorming and creative flow I designed a garter belt looking thing that attracted much attention and questions from passers by; for the entire day we took back roads and avoided eye contact with anybody… PD of course I feel felt the sympathy and opted to cash in on it any chance he got. At the end of the day… I’m glad he was found and the shit makes for a good story.