An Angeleno Dog

Auggie

One of the teachers at the Yeshivah here often tells a story: Before he moved to Los Angeles someone told him, "The best thing to be in LA is a dog . . . If you're a dog, Angelenos will go out of their way for you -you won't be lacking a thing . . . Los Angeles is too Politically Correct for that!"
I always thought that it was a cute story, but never put much into it. Until now.
My family has a dog . . . I know, it's far from a Chassidic pet, but as a last vestige off our older life, Auggie has hung it out with us. People who visit can't understand why someone would like a dog like Auggie. You see, after thirteen years, he's become a bit of a geriatric dog. He likes to sleep most of the day.

At times he'll roll over and grunt. We feel, though, that he makes a good guard dog -any intruder that breaks in (r"l) will most likely trip over him.But, I digress. At some point after my Smicha test last week, someone took the dog for a walk (not me) and tied it up outside a store around the corner. This dog walker came out, and discovered, most distressingly, that the dog was gone.
No searching seemed to find him, so in desperation we put up an add on craigslist. The entire Internet seemed to jump to find the dog. E-mails and phone calls came pouring in. One person was checking all the pounds. Another would use her business connections to print out posters. A third was forwarding all of his contacts with the message to keep an eye out. All of this over a geriatric dog. True he is my dog, so I value him (Thirteen years is a long time) . . . but strangers seemed to go wild over it.
After a few days we got the news . . . a homeless man had been found sleeping with the dog, our dog, next to him. Someone who saw the ad online recognized Auggie, took him from the sleeping man, and called us. Auggie has returned to his corner of the house, where he has resumed his sleeping and grunting.
While I don't wish to make light of the actions others have taken on our (and Auggie's) behalf; the thanks that so many people deserve for their effort -to help someone is always an amazing thing -and these people have so kindly and altruistically chosen to help us- I do wonder at the amount of excitement that's going on over a dog. It's almost creepy how much we care for these animals. Owners must care for their animals, there's no questions asked about that, but the amount of love we pour onto our dogs and cats is rather surprising.
Would the same amount of commotion be drawn over a missing person (G-d forbid)? In truth, most people, despite feeling very moved by such a tragedy, would feel that finding someone lost is beyond them -a matter for the Police, and not the average civilian . . . I shudder to think people would not be more greatly moved to action if this reason be not true . . .
So let us view this in a better light -I hope that it's a sign of how much more we would pitch in to help each other . . .

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