Good Will Towards Man....and Mans Best Friend

Trapper

So it’s the holidays, and try as we might to catch the real spirit of the season, we all get busy. Busy with material things Christmas shopping for the masses, baking like our lives depended on it to make up for a year of take-out or thrown together meals.

We feel guilty and try to make up for all the wrongs (real or imagined,) and end up spending money on things that lose their magic the day after Christmas.

As a Sales Rep, I’m lucky enough to toss in the whole end of year/quarter catch up thingy to my mix, which has become so consuming that I’ve neglected my blog as of late.

To put it simply, it's totally easy to forget about our fellow man, or mans best friend for that matter, in this season of giving.

Yesterday I heard about Richard Stockton College Professor William Rouche, a fellow Type 1 diabetic who had his leg amputated last year due to complications. A few years earlier, he’d adopted a yellow adult Lab named Trapper from an animal shelter, and they become best friends.

Trapper moved across the country with Rouche when he was offered his position at Stockton, which also happens to be my Alma mater, but that’s not really important.

Trapper was there for Will last year, when he had his leg amputated, and together they got through it. This past summer, Rouche and Trapper were sitting on their couch when an out of control car crashed into their home, right where they were sitting. Both escaped unharmed.

Last week, Rouche was walking Trapper around 6:30 am, when a light colored car hit both Rouche and Trapper, knocking Rouche down and damaging his prosthetic leg, and dragging Trapper down the street by his leash. Rouche immediately called 911, the police followed the blood trail & found Trapper alive, but severely injured.

He was taken to the Margate, NJ Animal Hospital (which is in my hometown) with extreme skin lacerations down to the bone on his hind leg and belly; facial scrapes and cuts, and a broken toe that would need to be amputated. Trapper has several more expensive surgeries in his future that that require months of rehab.

The car never stopped, never slowed down, and never gave a thought to Trapper or Will Rouche's well-being.

When I heard (and then read) about the story, it made me sad. But more than that, it made me sick, and it made me so angry that someone could do that and not even stop.

On a purely selfish note, the story made me think about my own dog Primo, who had been there for 17 years of my youth. Primo was a half-lab, half-Golden Retriever with skinny legs and hazel eyes - a true Kunik so to speak. Like me, she was the runt of the litter, and throughout my childhood she was always there, no matter what.

Primo not only loved me for everything I was, but she loved me unconditionally for everything I wasn’t. She didn’t care that I wasn’t popular in middle school and lacked confidence and grace. She didn’t care that I wasn’t perfectly healthy, or that I never would be considered such. She just loved me, because that’s what dogs do to the people “they”own.

I perked up when I read that a medical fund has been set up for Trappers medical needs and I knew I had to help. Here's the info in case your interested.

Margate Animal Hospital
9200 Ventnor Avenue
Margate, NJ 08402
609.823.3031

I’m donating to the fund on tomorrow, which is ironically Christmas Eve.
Maybe its just happenstance that I found out about the story a few days before Christmas, and I'll actually have the opportunity to drop by the animal hospital with check in hand.

More likely it’s my inane need to do something good, and pure, and right, for two beings who truly deserve it. To be part of something that has nothing to do with the commercialism of the season, but the actual true meaning of it.

Maybe I just really want to be part of the whole “good will towards man,”“good will towards dog” thing.

Whatever the reason, I thought I’d share the story with all of you in the DOC/dBlogville….because I thought you all needed to know their story.

Here are some links in case your interested in learning more.

Video Link

Man & Dog Hit - NBC10