Rudy

Rudy was a very old, very frail deaf gentleman when he was brought into the shelter by Animal Control – someone had reported him hit by car on a semi-rural road. He was missing a patch of hair and was pretty weak and dirty, and he had TWO microchips from two different shelters, neither of them had been registered to the adopter. This old guy had been passed around and then either allowed to wander off or dumped out on the road. We took him home and told him that he was safe, that we loved him and wanted him, but he was confused and wondered what had happened to him. With time and medication he settled in and started to enjoy walking very slowly around the big field, smelling the air and occasionally bursting into a gallop for a few strides.

Somewhere earlier in his life we think he’d been a ball player – and surely he’d been sharing someone’s dinner, too. He snagged a whole pizza and a package of cinnamon rolls in a quick leap! Rudy did his best to continue on, and he did respond to his ODH mom’s attention and being stroked a hundred times a day. But it was a huge struggle for him and when the struggle got too much we said goodbye. That tough old spirit was willing, the body was just worn out.

He was loved and he will be missed.