Guilty Conscience

Along the way on our journey, I've been trying to keep track of the birds that we see and identify, the wildlife we see and various other things.  As a list maker, it's very tempting to create all kinds of lists while we're on the road.  For the first two days, I was even writing down everything we ate!    I was thinking that you can really anchor your travels around any concept that you like.  For example, some people travel for diners, others for quaint little towns, others for adventure activities and birders, for bird lists.

Okay, I know that the list may or may not be the point.  But I had a little internal giggle over the idea of creating a dog list.  That is, identifying all the breeds of dogs we see on our trip - there have already been many so this could be very satisfying in that it would result in a very long list.  

But...there was one dog that was giving me heartache for the last several days.  While we drive along, I'm always on the lookout for wildlife and at some point on the way to Capitol Reef or maybe Escalante, I spied what I thought was a sheep on the side of the road.  Before I could mention it to A, I had passed the white creature by and realized it was a large hairy dog.  

A large, hairy dog...in Utah...in rural Utah.  What was I to think, what should I do.  I considered turning around, but then what?  Not only was this a strange dog, but it's not a dog we could keep...where do you find a shelter in the middle of rural Utah?  Somehow I think that strays are probably much more simply dealt with in any rural community.  

Believe it or not, I thought about this dog for miles and days.  I wondered if I was just a horrible person.  What kind of person leaves a dog out in the dessert to dehydrate to death?  All the good work I have done and will do in the world paled in relation to my decision not to stop for "the least among us," this beautiful white barking dog.  That night, I thought about turning around for many, many more miles than would be practical even knowing that the dog probably wouldn't be there if we returned.  And again, what would we do with this huge white dog when we couldn't even bring our little Mexican heat adapted dog along?

I didn't go back.

But I did learn that these great white hairy dogs are working dogs used for herding purposes and are a common sight along range land.  I'm so glad I didn't go back and steal someone's working dog with my good intentions and that this dog has someone at least nominally looking out for it. But just because this situation worked out okay doesn't mean that there aren't animals in need.  A told me we could foster a dog when we got back from our trip and I may have to hold him to that.