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Hope for abandoned dog to find its home

A Greyhound worker finds a dog hanging around a bus stop Friday. Three days later, the pooch's owner is a still a no-show.

By JONATHAN ABEL
Published July 19, 2006

BROOKSVILLE - Like a stranded traveler, cold and wet, a small black and white border collie waited for four days at the Greyhound bus stop.

The female dog appeared Friday morning, without tags or a name. Someone seems to have abandoned her Thursday night.

All of Friday, the dog waited. She waited Saturday and Sunday, too. On Monday, no one had come for her, but still the dog lingered.

"God, I'd love to get my hands on whoever abandoned this beautiful animal," said Donna Denslow, 77, who works for Greyhound. "The thing that is just breaking my heart is that the dog is looking at everybody just waiting for (her owner) to come back to her."

Denslow found the dog when she came to work early Friday morning. She fed her water and potatoes.

"I didn't want it to get (bone) splinters from eating chicken," she said.

Customers came into the convenience store, where the bus stop is, to ask about the dog.

They wanted to buy it hot dogs, Denslow said, but the store sells only corn dogs.

So they fed the deep-fried dogs to the abandoned one.

Each time a car pulled up, the dog would walk up to it, almost as if she were looking for her owner, Denslow said.

By Monday, the dog was shaking. Little clumps had formed in her black hair. A slow string of slobber dripped from her mouth.

The dog, which seemed well taken care of, burrowed a sleeping hole out of the soft dirt on the side of the gas station. When thunderstorms swept through Monday morning, she hid between the air conditioning units in the back of the station.

An animal control officer came out to the gas station Friday but couldn't get hold of the dog.

As Denslow was leaving work Friday afternoon, she said, she saw the dog running away from the animal control officer - and she expected that to be the end.

But when she showed up for work Monday, the dog was still there, apparently still waiting for whoever dropped her there.

On Monday, after a call from Denslow, a St. Petersburg Times reporter and photographer went to the Greyhound stop. The dog walked up to the pair and sat when commanded to do so.

The two took the bedraggled dog to the Humane Society's shelter on Mobley Road.

"A lot of people drop a dog off and figure someone will take care of it," said Joanne Schoch, executive director of the Humane Society of the Nature Coast. "People have got to understand that these animals are loyal. They love them. They still continue to look for them. They bond, and, to them, you're their family."

Schoch said the shelter will test the animal for heartworm and parvo. The owner has five days to reclaim the dog, and, after that, Schoch said, she will put the dog up for adoption.

The shelter, which is open Wednesday through Sunday, can be reached at (352) 796-2711.

[Last modified July 19, 2006, 08:05:52]