Most of us really are doggone good people

Lost hound tale truly inspires

THE DOG DAYS OF SUMMER ... Big City Columnists get all kinds of requests, from all kinds of readers. Although, I don't remember getting one from a seven-year-old boy.

Until last Thursday, that is.

"Little Boy wants your help," read the subject line on the newsroom receptionist's email.

"Shirley Stephens and her grandson Kai are trying to get a hold of you because he has lost his dog and he was hoping you could help find her."

Finding lost dogs is off my beaten track, you understand.

But there's something irresistible about a boy and a dog -- especially a little boy and a lost dog.

It was Friday before I saw the message and Monday before I stopped resisting the irresistible and returned his call.

Maddy, the sweet-faced basset hound, escaped from the family home in Wolseley on Aug. 14, a Saturday.

By Friday, six days later, the marauding Maddy had been spotted near The Forks.

The frightened and hence elusive hound was living out of a hydro box behind a call centre at the corner of Main Street and Mayfair Avenue, where employees had left it pizza and cat food because that's all they could find.

Plus water, of course.

By that time, Kai's mother, Kerri Woelke, had heard about the sighting and delivered a favourite blanket to the hydro box.

"My son, Kai, is really sad and we just want her home safe," Kerri wrote Monday after she heard from grandma Shirley that I'd called.

"With the heat and the fact that she's been too nervous to go to anyone, I'm worried about her health and the condition that she is in now. I'm out diligently looking, but ANY information would be of GREAT benefit. Thank you VERY much Gord. I am heading out to look for her again right now."

Kerri sent that email at 1:19 p.m.

At 4: 01 p.m. she sent another email.

"I JUST found her. I'm sitting in a back alley with her now. Thank you."

Actually, I didn't deserve a thank you. I only offered to help.

Others actually helped. Lots of others.

There was someone named Sandra from the call centre at Main and Mayfair, who organized the feedings while the hungry hound was hanging around that busy corner. There were a couple of Wolseley neighbours of Kerri's who drove her around looking for Maddy because she doesn't have a vehicle. It was the kind hearts at Westminster Spa whose Internet posting about the missing Maddy reached all the way into the U.S.

The Winnipeg Humane Society helped too, as did some people who fed Maddy after she camped out for the weekend in their Osborne Village-area backyard. Grandma Shirley Stephens helped too, and Kai's mum, of course, the one who actually coaxed Maddy out of her hideout by calling her name and then sat there on the ground as Maddy yelped at her, probably because she took so long to find her.

I know the story of a little boy and his lost dog isn't big news in a big city, even during the dog days of summer.

But it's a happy, hopeful story that should remind us Winnipeg isn't such a big city, even if it has big-city problems. And it's a story that should also remind us of who most of us really are.

Doggone good people.

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AND NOW SOMETHING ELSE TO REMEMBER... You might recall the story of the visiting stranger who witnessed a parking hit-and-run and left a message on the damaged vehicle's windshield (Small town guy knows right from wrong, Aug. 5)

Well, the car's owner, 45-year-old Armed Forces member Celine Filion, was able to contact and thank Charles Scott, the Good Samaritan from Petrolia, Ont.

Scott had not only taken the time to wrap the message in a plastic bag because it was raining, he even filed a witness report with police.

This after the man who smacked into the silver Honda pretended he was leaving a note.

The good news is he has since admitted responsibilty with Autopac, which means Celine doesn't have to pay her deductible.

"Despite it all, I hope things work out as well as they can for this person, too. I guess he was late for a medical appointment that morning. His vehicle insurance premiums will go up and mine won't. It's probably enough of a reminder for him, never mind whether he gets charged for leaving the scene."

Then Celine added this thought to reflect on and remember:

"We all make mistakes that we are not very proud of. We're all human."

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca