The "Lucky Dog" Series: Dedication / How the Lucky Dog Series Began

You may have already read one or more of the articles in my "Lucky Dog" series, and wondered if there was a particular significance to the name of the series.

There is.

Although my first dog Sandy, who I had for nineteen wonderful years while growing up will always and forever hold a very special place in my heart, this series is dedicated to my first true rescue dog, Lucky.

I very clearly remember the very first time that I spotted her. It was an unusually hot day, October 7^th, 2007, and we were in the middle of a heat wave for that time of year. It reached 89 degrees that day. I was driving into south Philadelphia, on 34^th Street. I had just rounded a curve in the road, and was in the left-hand lane of a road with two lanes in each direction. I happened to glance to the right to say something to a friend who was with me. Whatever I was going to say fell away from my mind; instead, I had noticed a medium-sized light brown or tan dog, staggering at the roadside and wandering half-on, half-off the curb. I remember saying to my friend Tram, "That dog's going to get hit".

I couldn't stop exactly where I was, but I decided to turn around at the next corner at the gas station and go back.

By the time we had safely turned around and come back, there was a car pulled up on the sidewalk, and two women were trying to keep the dog on the sidewalk without getting too close to it, and the dog had already been hit.