The Adventures of Rocky (without Bullwinkle)

By Sharon Strong

A cocker spaniel without a collar befriended an office worker’s dog at the creek outside Fern Lodge, and would not leave the property. After several hours, Alvaro and I took him in and showered him, removing twigs and redwood fronds from his fur, but he still smelled very bad (sorry, Suave–your Strawberry shampoo just wasn’t up to this job!) and was still dirty. His fur was severely matted. I drove around town, not able to locate a place to groom him, so I took him home, where I showered him again.  Then John and Carol took him home with them for two nights to Scotts Valley, where their dog, Chiquita, a Chihuahua, just loved having someone to play with!  We gave him a good trim, and he looked like a new dog.

We put flyers up Friday morning with the “before” picture of who John had named “Buddy,” and in an hour had responses from the neighbors at the end of the road.  “Rocky,” the Newly Groomed Cocker Spaniel Dog, was reunited with his family! The dad and two kids came about 4:45 last evening in a big teal colored truck.  At first they said, “No, wait…that’s not our dog….”  But the dad checked Rocky’s mouth for a chipped tooth, and voilá! How sweet to see the kids’ reaction to seeing him.  Rocky must have jumped five feet high when he saw them!  He went missing Monday, Dec 6, soon after the 8 yr old boy, Nicholas, removed the collar.  They did not put up posters because of the rain, the same reason we hadn’t done it yet. [We put sheet protectors on them to protect from the light mist Friday, and Ben and David, our gardener and maintenance man, started stapling to telephone poles on Madison Ave.]

The girl, Stephanie, aged 10 or 11, was bubbling with joy. I showed her how to train him to lie “down.”  She said she would try that instead of laying down herself as an example. She asked, “When he needs another hair cut, can we just bring him back…?”  Florin, the dad, said no, they would take him to the groomers.  He asked me if he owed us anything.  I said, “Just bring him by once in awhile for a visit, okay?” The dad looked at Stephanie and said yes, she could do that.  I gave them the new leash & collar.  The evening shift nurses chipped in for half the cost of the grooming. Maybe we can give the family a gift certificate so Stephanie and Nicholas can go to obedience school with Rocky. They left as Very Happy Campers and Appreciative Neighbors!

We provided a lovely service to that family. Rocky got a second chance by getting cleaned up. They may not have groomed the dog, it being so close to Christmas, and they needed $$ to buy gifts.  Now he can be in the house, play and be loved.  He was so incredibly SOFT without the matted fur!  And he had the benefit of being held in the uplifted and healing thoughts of the staff.

Adrienne was so dear with him.  When I saw her hand-feeding him leftover chicken from the kitchen, I said, “You know…… that’s the perfect way to train a dog.  Did you know you can teach him to sit?”  So I showed her, he obeyed, and she was so happy!  You should have seen how excellent Carol was with that dog! He was like putty in her hands, and she was SO loving. We ALL learned valuable lessons from our interactions with that precious idea of God!

The Bible Lesson that week had several references to help us with this adventure:

• “God is the Life, or intelligence, which forms and preserves the individuality and identity of animals as well as of men.”
• “All of God’s creatures, moving in the harmony of Science.…”
• “God gives the lesser idea of Himself for a link to the greater, and in return, the higher always protects the lower.”

We provided an Ark for Rocky:

• “Ark. Safety; the idea, or reflection, of Truth, proved to be as immortal as its Principle; the understanding of Spirit, destroying belief in matter. God and man coexistent and eternal; Science showing that the spiritual realities of all things are created by Him and exist forever.”