By:John C. O'Connell
Two VS women rescue lonesome stray
No one will ever know how he survived the long, frigid winter. Through New Year's blizzard and all the snows and freezing rains since, through bitter nights and a world where no one called him by his name, the dog somehow persevered long enough to find a saving kindness.
Seen limping and looking hungry in Valley Stream about four weeks ago, the three-year old jet-black dog, part Lab and part chow, had disappeared from his Queens Village home in November. Where he'd been for the four months in between is a mystery only he knows.
Two friends ended the lonesome stray's odyssey last week, rescuing him from what would surely have been a sad fate.
"I'd been feeding him for awhile, a few weeks, because we learned he was living in a hole in a neighbor's back yard," JoAnne Eggolt told The Herald. "He had a tag on that we could see, but we couldn't get close enough to him to read it. We just knew he belonged to somebody and it was important for us to get him and give him back to the owner who must be missing him."
JoAnne and her friend, Bobbie Gunderson, developed a plan. They would contact the veterinarian JoAnne uses for her own three dogs, and get a sedative for the animal so that they could read his tag and take him to the vet's.
And so on Saturday, Feb. 24, the two women put a sedative in the dog's food at 6 a.m. and penned him up in a chicken wire fence JoAnne had bought and constructed to keep the dog from wandering dangerously.
He was asleep by afternoon, and JoAnne and Bobbie bundled him in the chicken wire and brought him to Dr. Glenda Wexler's Broadway Veterinarians in Hewlett, who'd provided the tranquilizer.
But the lost animal's saga and the women's efforts weren't as close to an end as they hoped. The dog tag revealed a Brooklyn vet. Before taking him to Hewlett, Bobbi and JoAnne called the Brooklyn number and got the owner's name and address. They also learned the dog's name was Fluffy.
"When Bobbie heard the name on the phone," JoAnne said, "she looked at him and called him Fluffy. Immediately the dog's tail started wagging and he seemed so very happy to be called by his name. It was like he was saying, "Finally, somebody knows me. It was really something to see."
Unfortunately, they learned the owner didn't live at the address anymore, but had moved to Queens. JoAnne checked dozens of names in area code 718 and finally found one in Queens Village who, after repeated denials, admitted he was the dog's owner.
The final surprise was that he said he didn't want the dog back. Fluffy had run away from the family's new home just two days after they moved in November, the former owner said. After the dog ran away and didn't return, the family bought two Rottweilers.
"He said he was sorry, but that with two dogs already, he couldn't take Fluffy back now," JoAnne said. 'He never asked how the dog was."
Broadway Veterinarians groomed him and de-wormed him of parasites. Fluffy has all his shots and is healthy, according to a staff member at the vet's.
JoAnne and Bobbie want someone to adopt Fluffy; somebody caring. "If I put him in a pound they'll put him down. I don"t want that. I wish someone would take him. I would keep him but I have three dogs already and that"s the most you can have in Valley Stream."
JoAnne Eggolt asks any reader who would care lovingly for Fluffy to call her at (516) 285-7873.
