Well -- Good Golly! He went and did it now! Reuben went to the Ardmore Animal Wellness Center and he adopted himself a best friend. Molly is a full blood Basset Hound and everything that implies. You can hear that girl howl from two city blocks away, but today she has something worth howling about - - it wasn’t always that way. Molly is a rescue in every sense of the word. Thing is, we don’t know if Reuben rescued Molly, or if Molly rescued Reu. Maybe a little of both.
Reuben had just come back from his first tour of duty overseas, and from the active part of the active duty he had signed up for with the regular Army. He still had a bit of time left on his contract, but he was homebound at this point; and with Ardmore, Oklahoma having an Oklahoma National Guard base, he didn’t have to go too far to check in with the military folk. Reuben didn’t seem all that happy to be home though, and I could tell there was something in the back of his mind showing through his pretty green eyes – he had left a great part of him back in Alaska, at the duty station. I think she was his first real love; if I had to be honest with myself. I suggested to Reuben that he might want to volunteer at the animal shelter here in Ardmore, it may give him a bit of happiness to love all over kitties and puppies who were feeling trapped and a bit lonely. He could maybe even pick one out and bring it home if he had a mind to. We Stringfellows are not in the habit of limiting our animal intake; we can always add another one if there was a distinct and utter need; which it appeared there was one.
My son took me up on my suggestion, but not to volunteer, just to go see what was out there at the shelter. You know, just go out and look, and see if anything popped out or stood out or jumped out at him. You never really go to these sorts of places expecting to come home empty handed, do you? We don’t. You may, but we don’t. At least in the many years I’ve been alive it’s never happened. We arrived just before noon, and checked in, washed our hands, put on visitor’s badges and made our way to the cages in the back where all the dogs were kept. Though Reuben is actually more of a cat person, he felt it was better to get something he could train, be a friend to both during the day, and something to sleep with. Cats tend to wander off and don’t always appreciate cuddling.
We started out looking at the first few locked cages, each about four feet by four feet, maybe six feet tall, some had back doors so the dogs could share space, share food bowls if they needed to. We went from side to side, front to back, just looking - - thinking. Reuben and I separated, he went to the right, I went to the left, and we just walked around quietly as the dogs barked and tried to vie for our attention, one at a time, most of them sat in the corners of their cages, laying on the hard concrete floors with super sad faces and forlorn looks; sometimes I hate these places and most of the time I love them because they do save lives. One of the reasons we volunteer so often at animal rescues is for that reason only; to bring joy or happiness to the animals, knowing full well that when they are happy, they bring it in spades back to us.
I don’t know what kind of dog Reuben was messing with, but I found myself at the back of the intake cages watching a dog whose cage plate said her name was ROSIE. According to the plate she was about 18 months old, that she had been a rescue from a local puppy mill just a few days back, she had been recently spayed, and she would need to be adopted by a family with other dogs because she loved attention from both humans and other animals. No problem there, if there’s one thing the Stringfellows are good at it is collecting both humans and animals. I called out to my son to have him come over to where I was; he wasn’t set on looking at a Basset Hound, but OK, he decided he could at least look, right? He was thinking about a Pit-Bull Lab mix male, but then again, he knew he would be moving out on his own soon and some places didn’t take bully breeds no matter how sweet they were. He saw Rosie, and he fell in love instantly. She took a solid 10 seconds before her heart was lost; she wasn’t sure if she should whimper at me or him for attention - - his squishy face must have appealed to her; she chose Reuben over me.
Within a few minutes they were both in each other's arms and paws, rolling on the floor, laughing, hugging, kissing, and making life long decisions regarding their new bond. It was decided; Rosie was going to be a Stringfellow today, and her name would be changed to Molly because Reuben’s favorite actress at the time was Molly Ringwald; she was a red headed woman, the dog had red patches; it was decided. If the dog had a problem with it, she never said a word.
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