We have arrived in Mission, Texas!

We arrived in the RGV for the winter on Saturday afternoon. So far all I have done is clean and organize the stuff we had stored in the Texas Room. My mom and sister are flying down today. Mom's place is right behind us, so I cleaned it good yesterday so she wouldn't have to do that. I know my sister would have done that, but they will surely be tired when they get here. Mom is 92, but still going strong. We will pick them up this afternoon. I then cleaned the Texas Room which is actually a 12 x 28 efficiency apartment, did laundry, etc. We put up our swing so Mom has a place to sit and watch the park activity. My back is pretty achy today. It will be fine, but I probably did too much yesterday. All the nerve pain is gone for good though, so a brisk walk later should help with the achiness.

The day we got here I spent several hours with a lost dog. My dog is a Scottie and when I was over checking out things at Mom's a neighbor pointed to the wandering Westie and asked if he was mine. I had a white Scottie, but she is gone now. I have such a soft place for Westies and Scotties. He had THREE tags on him, but no name tag and no owner phone number. A dog tax tag, a vet tag and a chip tag. I called the chip and vet tags, but late Saturday afternoon no one was home. I went home and got the leash and he was sooooo friendly and walked so good on the leash. At least I knew he would be a park resident. Our park is all fenced and the open gate was quite far away from this little guy. The neighbor, a full year resident, got her golf cart and we took him through the park to find his owner. His tags were Wisconsin, so we hunted for Wisconsin plates. Two streets over a lady on her porch said she saw a "big guy" walking this dog earlier. New residents on the same street are from Wisconsin and Carol, my friend, knew him to be a big guy. We went to their place and their porch deck had all kinds of dog stuff on it, but the gate was open. Knocked on the door and no one was home despite their golf cart and car being there. But no dog came to the door either, so their dog was lost or they had it with them.

My friend had the guy's phone number so she called. No answer so left messages. Another neighbor a couple houses down said she was sure it was their dog and knew some other people in the park they hang with. So off we went to Gigi's house. She knew the dog and his name is "Chance." He is such a lover. When I hugged him he would give me kisses. Fortunately Gigi has the woman's phone number so we called. They had just left church and were headed out to eat. Was sure this wasn't her dog because they had left him in the house. Well, guess what? Gigi assured her it WAS Chance. They came home and got their sweet, sweet boy. They said when they get ready to leave he goes under their bed. Dick had stepped out on the deck for something and they figure at that moment Chance ran out with no one seeing him. They were so upset that he had gotten out. Chance is 13 years old, but appears much younger. He is really is good shape and you can tell he is well cared for.

I had met Chance last year when they first came down and rented. Dick remembered me because of my Scottie. We had a good visit and even though we had taken good care of Chance, he was glad to see his Mom and Dad! LOL. They are going to get him a tag and put their owners number on it along with his name. And they are going to be more careful of checking on Chance before they leave.

Chance is a rescue. They had a Westie who had died. Chance came into rescue and they agreed to foster him for a day or two. When they were cleaning him up, they found him to have multiple bee bees imbedded in his face and back. They decided them they were keeping him to keep him safe from ever being abused again. So glad we got to meet them and keep Chance safe for them. I'm sure it won't happen again, but we certainly did love on him while we searched for his owners!

Till next time. . .

Dale