Dog Rescue and Butterfly Lever Card

Warning, this post is a long one. Yesterday I took our visiting niece to Elbow Falls, where I re-discovered two things.

One - it doesn't matter how often I visit Elbow Falls, I always enjoy the beautiful scenery.

Two - I love dog-people.

There we were - with a crowd of other tourists. And the dog-people weren't looking at the falls. Or talking about the falls. We were all looking at the obviously lost Australian Cattle dog on the other side of the river.

Obviously lost, and because we were dog-people, we knew he was standing there staring at us because he knew people and he knew people find a way to help him. The murmurs went around - even through the British tourists. The non dog-people however, if they noticed the dog at all, said "oh- look at the dog over there", and went back to looking at and talking about the falls.

A young couple decided to act. She used her key lanyard to secure her dog, and her boyfriend took their leash then climbed down to the river. The Very Fast Moving river. He managed to swam across, but the dog panicked and ran from him. Undeterred, this (wet & cold) young man kept trying to help. Through the bush and back around to the gravelly shore - he finally got the dog to see he was there to help, and the dog let himself get hooked up to the leash among cheers from the dog-people across on the view point. 

The next problem was to get the dog back across the river. The dog did not want to go in the river, and the current would be too strong for this fellow to try to swim with a struggling dog. I had the number for the RCMP office on my cell phone. We had already told his girlfriend we would stay with her until we knew he was safe, so I held onto her dog and she made the call. Turns out out there wasn't a road she could drive over to & pick him up. There were only off-road trails with no map.

Meanwhile, the young man and dog had disappeared into the bush along the shore, looking downstream for the best place to cross. I was concerned when we lost sight of him, since there are bears and cougars in the area - and suddenly the river wasn't the only thing to worry about.

I called a neighbor who hunts off-road, and he told me how we could get over there. As we were about to head out, a man and his whole family (grandparents, kids etc) offered to go with us in case we needed to spread out. They had been there the whole time, cheering on the young man and keeping an eye on the river & shoreline for him.

An hour before, none of us knew each other - but there we were, tied together with our efforts to help a brave young man, a concerned girlfriend, and a lost dog.

As we headed en mass down to the parking lot, - we saw a skinny Australian Cattle Dog beside a very wet man. They were heading towards us, having double backed through the bush and finding an ATV trail which led to a place he was comfortable crossing the river upstream.

The father dashed back up the trail to notify the girlfriend, and the young man looked kind of dazed at the group of people clapping and congratulating him, and telling him how happy we were that they were both safe. After all - he was a dog-person and what else would he do?

They were going to take the dog to a vet to see if he was micro-chipped, and there was a phone number on the dogs collar they they would keep trying. Somewhere, someone missing their dog is going to get a happy surprise.

So there you have it ... an adventure with a happy ending, and the reason I love dog-people.  And we got to see the beautiful Elbow Falls as well!

(out of respect for their privacy, I am not posting pictures of the young couple or the rescue)

Onto my card share, for my Fancy Card Friday I have a Butterfly Lever Card to show.

I confess, this is a card I made last year for my friend Sue, but never did get it posted.

All the papers are by K&Co and most are double sided. The cut file is from SVG Cuts.com. 

LOL - it was so long ago, I don't even recall what words I stamped inside or how I finished it off!

I do remember it was a lot of fun to make though, and hopefully I will get into the studio again sometime soon and maybe even fire up my Cricut!  It's been a busy time with our Calgary Stampede on and out-of-town family. No Grandbaby yet, and we remain on-call. Dr. says it could be anytime and even thought about inducing Heather on Tuesday, but we all know these babies are the ones in charge and they pick their own time and date.

(Please come soon, little one -- we can't wait to meet you!!)

Thanks for stopping by today - have a great weekend!