“You’re certainly a noisy chap, aren’t you Stanley?” Olive said when Grace opened the door. “I left Elsa back at my house to avoid too much excitement, what with this little lad being a stray and no doubt finding all this a bit overwhelming. I didn’t want Elsa adding to the chaos.” The older lady held up a shopping bag. “I’m here with your food delivery, Stanley. We can’t have you going hungry, can we?”
Grace laughed at the way Olive chatted to the dog, much the same way she’d done herself since finding the scruffy animal out on the street. Stanley had a way about him, a sort of swashbuckling charm that made it hard not to talk to him as if he was an actual person.
“Come in, Olive,” Grace said, still clutching the wriggling Stanley in her arms. “I don’t want to put him down on the ground in case he jumps all over you, and I don’t have a collar or lead to keep him under control.”
“Then it’s a good thing I brought a few extra bits to tide you over while you’re looking after him,” Olive said, stepping into the hallway and following Grace to the living room. The older lady reached inside the shopping bag hooked over her arm and pulled out a collar and lead.
“As Stanley is a stray, and you said you had no experience with dogs, I thought this might come in handy. Since I started looking after my neighbour’s dog, I keep a spare collar and lead at home, just in case. Having these should certainly make it easier for you to transport Stanley to the vet’s surgery tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Olive, that’s really kind of you. How much do I owe you?”
“Good grief, you don’t owe me anything, dear. Once Stanley finds his way back to his own home, you can return these to me whenever is convenient.”
Grace accepted the collar and lead. Stanley sat politely on the floor while she buckled the collar around his neck before he dashed over to sniff at Olive and enjoy having his head patted.
“He’s certainly a well-behaved little dog, and very sweet, too,” Olive said. “I’m sure someone must be missing him. You said he was running around alone outside your house?”
Grace nodded. “I’d just got out of my car after driving home from work when he came tearing down the pavement towards me, all by himself. He was fairly smelly until I gave him a bath, and although he’s looking fluffy now because he’s just had a wash, his ribs are sticking out a bit beneath his skin. I think he might have been on his own for a while, judging by how grubby he was and how thin he seems.”
“Yes, I can see now that he is a little on the thin side,” Olive said, running her hand along his side. “Well, we can soon take care of that. There is plenty of food in this bag to keep him going.”
Olive handed the shopping bag to Grace, and when she looked inside, she saw half a dozen foil trays of dog food, a small box of dry food, and a bag of gravy bones.
“This is far too much, Olive, but I really appreciate it. I’ll sort him a nice bowl of dinner to tuck into. I feel bad for only giving him tuna earlier. It definitely wasn’t enough.”
“If Stanley has been straying for a while, as you suspect, you probably did the right thing by only giving him a small portion of food to begin with. If he hasn’t been eating regularly, then a big feed all at once would almost certainly have risked making him sick.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that.” Grace carried the bag of food into the kitchen and set it on the counter. “There’s probably an awfullot about dogs I don’t know. I hope I’m not doing anything wrong so far. I washed him with regular human shampoo when I gave him a bath earlier. Do you think that’s okay or have I risked harming him?”
Olive laughed. “You did fine, dear. He’s clean and safe and being well looked after, and that’s all that matters. I doubt that being washed on one single occasion with non-canine shampoo will cause him any problems.”
“I made sure to avoid getting it in his eyes.”
“Then it sounds to me like you do know what you’re doing, after all.”
As Grace prepared the meal for Stanley, Olive gave her advice about how much dry food to add to the wet food from the foil tray. By the time she set the bowl on the floor, Stanley was a whirling dervish of excitement.
Grace watched Stanley wolf down the food and lick the bowl clean before looking back up at her hopefully.
“Should I give him some more?”
“Not right now,” Olive advised. “That was a healthy portion and should keep him going until tomorrow morning. You can always give him a few gravy bones if he begs too much later.”
When no more food was forthcoming, Stanley lapped at the bowl of water beside his empty food bowl, then hurried to the back door again. Grace let him outside, and he dashed to the back of the lawn to do his business.
“Oh, and there are a few poo bags to tide you over in amongst the food supply, too,” Olive said with a wry grin, before laughing at Grace’s wincing expression. “I’m afraid that some aspects of dog care are not particularly glamorous.”
“I’m beginning to realise that,” Grace laughed. “Still, he is awfully cute.”
“He is indeed, and you’re doing a good deed in looking after him. Let me give you my phone number in case you have any problems tonight and need some advice.”
Grateful for the idea of having this kind older lady at the end of the phone should she need it, Grace added Olive’s number to her phone. Olive also gave her the house number she lived at, so she could return the collar and lead once Stanley no longer needed them.
“I hope everything works out okay at the vet’s tomorrow when you take him to be scanned for his microchip details,” Olive said once they’d returned to the front door. “You’ll let me know what happens to him, won’t you?”
“Of course. It’s the least I can do considering all this help you’ve given me with a collar and lead and food.”
“I’m happy to help. That’s what neighbours are for.”
