One afternoon I was driving down a road with my cousin. We had just visited my grandparents who live in a more rural area of town. Normally you have to watch out for animals that jump out onto the road so as to not hit them. Normally a squirrel, raccoon, or the occasional deer will surprise you, but I wasnt expecting what jumped out in front of me.

A basset hound jumped out in front of me! I luckily wasn’t going very fast and was able to miss him. We stopped and got out of the car just in time to catch him. We didn’t know what to do and he appeared to be slightly injured so we brought him home. Luckily the neighborhood where we found him has a Facebook group and we were able to find the owner.

After talking to the owner, we found out that this was a regular occurrence. About every month this dog decides to dig under the fence and go off on a stroll. He was also 21 years old and blind. We were shocked to learn this.

After the owner thanked us and left, I started thinking about how good I felt about helping this dog. It made me think about how helpless dogs are and how they need constant care. Right after having this thought, an ad popped up on my computer for a dog shelter needing volunteers. I took this as a sign and that next weekend I started volunteering at that shelter. Even though I had never volunteered at an animal shelter before, I found it to be one of the most rewarding things I have done.