Thursday, August 26, 2010

SWEET PEA THANKS VICTORY MILLS

(A personal note from the webmaster, Dotty Robinson)

After four years living at large, Sweet Pea, the gray “ghost dog” of Victory Mills is home. She was captured Monday evening on the porch of the St. Stephens parish hall by Douglas Durning and Nancy Knapik, who had seen her taking refuge in their sand barrel, especially during storms. A Katrina rescue who had lived in a succession of shelters for most of the year afterward, Sweet Pea dug her way out of our fenced yard the day after we brought her home in June, 2006. She has been literally running scared ever since.

For several weeks, she came to our back porch during the night to eat the food we left out for her, though no amount of coaxing or chasing could snare her. Neighbors tried to catch her too, and kept us up to date on her whereabouts. I did a daily “Sweet Pea Sweep” to make sure she had not been hit by a car. When duck hunting season started, however, with shots heard all around us, Sweet Pea high-tailed it into town. Flyers posted throughout the area yielded many phone calls but no dog. House to house canvassing revealed that many Victory Mills residents were finding their cat food left on the back porch was disappearing rapidly, and many people had seen her walking down the street, “just as if she was going somewhere”, one person said. She was seen by the post office, in the cemetery, at the mill, everywhere, it seemed, but could not be caught.

As days went by, and then weeks, we worried about the coming winter. We hoped her fluffy chow coat would protect her. Bob Donisthorpe and Lorraine Petralia reported that Sweet Pea seemed to be taking shelter in a leaning piece of scrap metal behind their house, down by Fish Creek, so they started putting out food for her. That was almost four years ago, and they put out the last bowl of food on Monday before they learned that she had been caught.

Many, many times through the years we discovered people who had been feeding Sweet Pea. Claudia Nevins would put out leftovers for her when her husband Bill spotted the dog approaching. “My friend Cathy up on the hill said she’s been feeding her too,” said Claudia, “and she said the dog drinks a lot of water”. Gail Sullivan reported the dog’s habitual path through her back yard, and Mayor Jim Sullivan saw Sweet Pea most evenings as he took his evening walk. “She looked in really bad shape recently,” he said. So Dr. Patti Jolie provided worming medicine, which Bob and Claudia planted in the food they put out.

Ed Cross, our local animal control officer, had been trying to trap Sweet Pea, without success, for a long time. He redoubled his efforts as her health deteriorated. When he called to tell me the news, he sounded incredulous. “Those people will be the heroes of the town!” he said. And indeed they are. Doug took the dog to the nearby vet, Dr. Sarah Schug, who stayed after hours to treat her many ailments and inoculate her. With the help of our daughter, Linda Cook, and our grandchildren, Austin, Hannah, and Graham, we brought Sweet Pea home to recuperate.

We didn’t know that Nancy and Douglas were keeping track of Sweet Pea, just as we never knew who all the people were who called about her, watched out for her, and fed her. What we do know is that there are a lot of very, very nice people in Victory Mills, and to them we, and Sweet Pea, are forever grateful.

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