The Positive Power of PERSONAL Social Media

Yesterday was my husband’s grandmother’s birthday.  So the whole family loaded up in the car and headed the next county over to go visit her at the nursing home with flowers and cupcakes and good cheer.  It was snowing.  (It’s worth noting that it was 73 day BEFORE yesterday).

Outside the nursing home was a sweet little bulldog mix puppy who was SUPER EXCITED TO SEE PEOPLE (and could clearly smell the three suckers in the group of us–me, my husband, and my FIL).  The entire hour and a half visit, he paced outside the windows, barking and crying.

The nursing home is in a small town.  One grocery store.  A few gas stations.  Assorted other small businesses.  My husband has had photography clients out of there and elsewhere in that county.   So while we were there, he hopped on Facebook to tag all our peeps in the county to say hey, there’s a puppy loose here, spread the word and let’s see if we can find his owner.  But we didn’t get much beyond an “Aw he’s so cute!  I’ll spread the word.”  Given it was supposed to be down in the low 20s last night, we knew he’d freeze if he was left out, so we brought him home.

This is not a decision I ever make lightly.  We’ve fostered half a dozen dogs over the years, finding new homes, and we’ve always been successful.  But I know that there’s always a chance we might end up keeping one (because we’re not going to give a dog away to a NOT good home and we aren’t going to just turn it out).  I’ve said no the last several times this kind of thing has come up because Daisy is special needs and I just don’t fee like we can take another dog.  But again, LOW TWENTIES.  PUPPY.  I have a heart.

So we brought him home, pulled out the crate, and I picked up some puppy food when I went to the grocery.  While I was doing that, hubby was joining all the local swap and sell groups in the next county to post notices with pictures about the found dog.  Somebody responded saying he’d seen the same puppy running around the grocery store last week.  We were starting to think we’d be finding a new home instead of the original.  And that meant we’d be screening people because there is a problem in some of the surrounding counties with dog fighting and we wouldn’t want him to be used as a bait dog.

Then at 9:30 last night, we got a phone call.  The owner saw one of the shares.  The puppy belongs to his daughter (was a Christmas present), and had run off last week.  He was SUPER RELIEVED.  Puppy’s name is Maximus.

Since it’s the next county over and was so late, we kept him for the night.  He was a great little house guest.   Already house trained, happy to chill out in the crate.  Didn’t make a peep until he saw hubby first thing this morning.  I was having some neck problems anyway, so instead of a workout this morning, I sat and iced my neck and let him snooze in my lap.  Less calorie burn but lap cuddles are good for the soul and as mine haven’t been small enough for that for YEARS, not something I get but once in a blue moon.  When I got in the shower, he totally co-opted my chair and has been snoozing in my spot.  Sweet boy.   He’ll be going home to his little girl this afternoon (and our girls will be happy because they were like, dude this is our house).

We found the little guy’s owner in about 8 hours because of local connections and the nice, multiplicative reach of Facebook.  And apparently we were the only people to try in a week (poor boy).  Anyway, all’s well that ends well.  And this is a great example of the PERSONAL nature of social media in a local space.