Last June my girlfriend and I were pulling out of the parking lot of our condo, headed to the hardware store for some furniture building supplies (I was building a desk but that's not the point). As we were turning, we saw a raggedy cocker spaniel walking down the other side of the road in the opposite direction. Seeing a dog walking himself down the road would have been concerning enough, but this guy was obviously old, dirty, and could have been assumed lost for at least a week. We made a u-turn and picked him up. Without a collar, our only option was to take him inside and give him some water before taking him to a vet to check for an ID chip. I also made a post in a local lost dogs Facebook group for good measure. Well, we let him stay the night, and the following morning I get a phone call from his owners. Turns out this dog lives right across the street and we picked him up the moment he wandered out of his yard. This wasn't very comforting. He looked terrible so obviously his owners weren't taking care of him properly. He wouldn't stop shaking his head either, leading us to believe he had ear mites. We would later learn that he had an extreme yeast infection in his ears, a common problem with floppy-eared dogs like cocker spaniels if you don't regularly clean their ears out. His longstanding infection also rendered him entirely deaf. Poor pupper can't hear a thing. We even tried beating a pan with a wooden spoon over his head while he slept... he didn't notice.
Despite rapidly growing attached to this dog and him making himself at home instantly, this inadequate level of care was our biggest reservation in giving him back. Unfortunately, we had already started down that path. His owners came by near the end of the day to get him.
They hung out with us for a little while to chat. We learned that his name is Dickens and that he's 15 years-old, although we took to calling him "Dickey" because it rolls off the tongue easier and what difference does it make to a deaf dog? After maybe 30 minutes and seeing how much happier he was with us, we were asked if we wanted to keep him. How could we say no to that? He's a sweetheart! We agreed, but they still took him home for two weeks so we could finish unpacking and getting our new place in order. Old boy's been with us ever since
Have some pics of Dickey sleeping and being happy:
And a short clip of him being a lovable dork:
lick.mp4