
Zoe: The first night
Meet Zoe. Last week while Diane was working at the farm this skinny puppy showed up. At first she was trying to catch a ride with the few cars going down our road, but then she noticed Diane on the tractor and came over to visit.
Shortly I after that I got a phone call saying that I needed to come to the farm to see what showed up. I get there to find a 60 pound, underweight, filthy, starving, lovely black lab. This poor girl was covered in mud and filth, she smelled horrible, and she inhaled the 2 cups of food I brought for her. Not ate fast, inhaled. In less than 10 “bites” she ate it all and was looking for more.
After some talking we decided that there was no way we would leave her at the farm alone. Mostly because we feared that she would try to follow us to the house and end up on a busier road and get hit. So home she went. Once we got her home she got her first bath. It helped some, but the smell of cow dung was terrible.

Zoe starting to feel at home
The next day we discovered that she had apparently been surviving by eating that cow dung. She was thrilled to eat ‘real’ food. So thrilled that we decided to ration it by only giving her a cup of food every few hours. Slowly we convinced her that there would always be food for her and she slowed down to the point we could actually hear chewing. Over the next few days she got more baths, more food, and lots of love.
Diane spent a few days checking with neighbors just in case Zoe may have simply gotten lost. But by Monday we had given up looking and decided it was time to take Zoe to the vet. She got a checkup, full course of shots, a clean bill of health, and then the hard part. We left her there overnight. It was for her own good, we had her spayed before she had a chance to have more puppies. I’m sure she was upset that her new found people had abandoned her, but we knew better.

Zoe coming “home”
This afternoon we picked up our newest addition to the family. A one year old black lab puppy with a new name, Zoe. BTW, Zoe means life in Greek. And one of Diane’s favorite TV shows, Caprica, had a lead character named Zoe who had one life end only to have a second life begin. It seemed fitting.
At first she was a bit timid when we picked her up. It was to be expected, we had just left her alone overnight and she had to go through surgery. But Diane made sure we brought her new squeaky toy with us and once she had that in her mouth she realized that she was with her new forever family.
I wish we had more of the farm ready so we could take in more animals in need. But we are going to do the best we can with what we have. I’m pretty sure that will be enough for Zoe.