Today, after leaving my car to be serviced, I decided to go and do some shopping and stop in at the local Starbucks. I finished the shopping and as I was heading over to purchase my brew, I saw a very cute and somewhat dejected Corgi, tied to a loading zone sign. I gave him, or her, a glance, and a quick hello and went inside.

I am always a bit concerned as to who would do this to a dog no matter how many times I've seen it, whether it be in good weather or bad. My concern for the dog's welfare may seem overstated to some, but I always feel that when someone has done this they don't have the best welfare of the animal in mind.

Sometimes people go into shops and will only be a minute, this I can understand. Most of the time that I have actually stayed around to see if the dog is rescued from it's tethering, it has always been longer than the quick in and out. In this case my suspicions that someone who owned the dog was more interested in their coffee became true.

I decided to sit and wait to see who was going to claim the little dog. After an hour, no one came forward. I took it upon myself and went and asked one of the employees of Starbucks whose dog that was. No one knew, no one seemed to care, which seems to be typical of people these days. What else could I do?

I asked the person if they could check to see if any of their patrons owned the dog, but that seemed to go in one ear and out the other. I then decided that if they didn't care I would handle it myself. If I hadn't gone outside at that precise moment, that little dog would have either ran off or would have possibly wandered onto the busy street. They had only wrapped the dog's lead once around the post.

I found out that her name was Roxie and she was very friendly. I sat on the curb with her for about fifteen minutes, trying to decide what I should do. It has been at least 1 1/2 hours now, since I first got there, and goodness knows how long she was tied up before that. I checked her collar tag and found two phone numbers, and decided to give the owner a call. As I was about to this a lady came out of Starbucks, because she had seen me holding Roxie's lead.

The amazing part to me is that she wasn't even overly concerned that her dog had been tied up for all this time, and that if I hadn't gone out when I did, her dog could have vanished or possibly been killed. I told that if she hadn't come out when she did I would have rescued her dog myself.

I would have simply taken her home and called the numbers and have Roxie's mom come to pick her up. I defintely wouldn't have dumped her off at the local SPCA, because we know what they're like, but I would have never left that little dog there.

I made this quite clear to the owner that this type of neglect is what gets animals killed or stolen, and I wouldn't have hesitated a second in taken her dog, just to prevent this sort of thing from happening.

She thanked me for watching out for her dog, and after all that time Roxie was tied up, she decided to put her in her car, I couldn't believe my eyes. Before she went inside to get her keys, she wrapped the lead around the post as she had done before. I told her to get her keys and I would watch Roxie for her, because I wasn't going to let anything happen to her now. I just couldn't believe what I was witnessing.

I'm positive that Roxie is a well cared for dog, but caring must go a lot further than just taking them for walks and feeding them. It amazed me also at the lack of concern that the majority of the people that went past Roxie that didn't care, and this included the staff at Starbucks. Most of these people were there the same length of time that I was, but I was the only one who did anything about it.

I just wish people would wake up and treat their pets and other people's pets the same way they would like to be treated. Roxie's story isn't as detrimental as other stories of animal mistreatment are, but it's still mistreatment, and isn't this is how it all starts?

Sincerely

Tim Fisher