Mory

This is not necessarily a happy story. Don't read it Mom unless you want to cry.

One day Tabea and I were driving on a road back to our campground in Maussanne. We'd been on the road before. It is a highway, which means you go pretty fast between the requisite every-kilometer roundabout. And suddenly we both saw something in the road. Tabea slammed on the breaks; we stopped well in front of a young terrier. A few other cars stopped, we pulled to the side. We got out. The pup was friendly, it was seemingly in good health, not scared, but not aggressive. It seemed to be about 3 months old, maybe a bit more, but not fully grown. After I was sure it wasn't going to bite me or freak out, I picked it up. It's poor heart was racing. I held it and Tabea got water for it-- it was hot. We gave her (we now knew) water. She drank happily for a minute. Then she went back into the street. Cars avoided her. Tabea grabbed her back. We were both contemplating. What should we do? Tabea said that in Germany the police would care for such a dog. But, we had no way of finding the police. I wanted to take the dog in the car with us, but then what if she had owners? We hemmed and hawed. The dog went back into the street seemingly unaware of any danger. But she had so many cockleburs in her fir I knew she'd been out for a while-- how could she not appreciate the danger?

Eventually Tabea and I left. We didn't know what to do. We went to the next town 1.7 km away. There we found the only thing open on a Sunday-- the gas station. I went inside and asked the woman if she spoke any English. None. So I would have to do this the hard way.

"Une Chienne est dans le rue."

The woman looked confused.

"Une Chienne est dans le grand rue."

She wasn't getting any less confused.

"Qui aidez la chien?"

Which almost means something like "who can help the dog?"

Finally the woman understood I was talking about a dog and a road. She kept asking if it was dead.

"Non, pas de mort" I said. I think that's something close to "no, not dead".

After a while she came to understand that it was a tiny dog--I was almost crying.

"Une petite chienne" I pleaded.

She told me I could call the firemen and told me the number. Since it was sunday, everything, even the police, were closed. But Tabea's phone was uncharged.

Finally she said she would take the dog for the night and then take it to the police the next day. So we went back for la petite chienne.

And we never found her. She hadn't been hit. That we knew. We looked for a half hour.

Since she'd been on the street the whole time before and since so many other cars had stopped while we were with her, we figure some lucky french family has adopted Mory, named after the town we found her near.

I think about her standing there helpless in the street wondering why I put her down and went away. I will probably always cry for Mory. Tabea later said that she was, at first, scared of the dog because she didn't know what it might do, but that she had seen it was pretty tame and thought she should rescue it and smuggle it into Germany and adopt it. I didn't know that. She didn't know that I was thinking there must be a way to somehow make sure it was adopted. We weren't able in that moment to figure out the right thing to do. We weren't able to make that decision spontaneously in this vast unknown of France that we are in. Possibly at home we'd have done something different. I ultimately made the decision, not Tabea, and said we should go.

And so we drove away with Mory in our rearview mirror staring at us as we left.

Bonne Chance ma beau chienne!