The Rescue

Wrigley, a 7-year-old Cocker Spaniel, Describes Saving a Lucky Lady

August 13, 2015

We have been traveling for the last few weeks now, and have a scheduled stop for the motorhome’s check-up with an oil and filter change in Tennessee. In the office, they said it would be over an hour. They were nice enough to set me up in a temporary office, so I could catch up on my email. Yes, I do get email and I’m asked a lot of questions about my adventures on the road.

The most frequent question I’m asked is, “do you remember your first adventure?” The answer comes easily to me. It was back in 2010. My family still had the 2004 32’ Gulfstream RV. We are traveling with our Uncle Keith. Uncle Keith wanted to see his family in New Hampshire and I wanted to take him one more time on a trip in the motorhome he once owned. He and I would be the copilots. The plans were that we would drop Uncle Keith off in New Hampshire and then continue on to Maine. Our return trip would take us back through New York with Niagara Falls as the last stop on the way home.

We were making good time as we drove through Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. When we got to the state of New York, my mom was driving on a N.Y. expressway. I was sitting on my dad’s lap looking out the window when I started barking a warning!

Weaving in and out of traffic, dodging cars and running full blast against three lanes of heavy traffic, is a dog coming straight at us. Thank goodness my mom was in the outer lane and carefully pulled over and came to a stop on the shoulder of the road. It's a good thing mom had taken that Lazydays driver confidence course and knew how to handle our house on wheels. I’m hysterically barking my warning “get off the road” through the window, but the dog doesn’t hear me.

My dad told me to calm down, and that he would see if he could get the dog’s attention. As he opened the door to get out, in came the dog running full speed and jumped right onto Uncle Keith’s lap. Uncle Keith just happened to be sleeping at the time! Being the cool guy that he is, Uncle Keith sleepily looked the dog straight in the eye and said, stuttering, “what the… who the… where the heck did you come from?”

Other than needing a good brushing, she seemed totally unharmed and happy to be safe inside. She was a beautiful, pure white lab that was extremely friendly, full of love, with lots of energy and looked hungry. So I, being the gentleman, shared my food with her. She had no tags and no collar, so we weren’t sure what to do.

We called the state patrol who met us at the closest rest stop. He said he would take her to the local shelter and was nice enough to take our number, so he could tell us the results of our rescue. He called us a few days later and said she was fine and would have a good home soon. Thinking the name was fitting, I gave her the name “Lucky Lady.” This was a 28-day trip covering over 3000 miles. I think if this had happened on the way home instead of just taking off, I would have had a new sister!

Well folks, I have just been paged that my home on wheels is done. Time to settle up the charges and get back on the road.

Easing on down the road until next time.

This is the third in a series of articles By Judy Andreotti about travels through the eyes of her dog Wrigley.

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