Who's your Buddy? Who's your pal?

For the past 6 weeks or so, my parents have been involved in high drama involving a dog named Buddy. Apparently Buddy used to live with a homeless man somewhere in the woods near their neighborhood. The homeless man died a year or so ago, and Buddy has been on his own ever since, except for a rather eclectic group of supporters who have been slipping him food and trying to catch him. Animal Control took up the case about the same time Mom and Dad got involved and issued an edict that he should not be fed, which drove Buddy's buddies underground. The time since then has been filled with high intrigue, involving lots of phone calls between sources and lots of quiet slipping into and out of a sinkhole. Abandoning him simply wasn't an option.

Mom got him to the point a couple weeks ago where he would take food from her hand:



Aside from that though, nobody has been able to get close to him until the other night when he sat down by my father and let Dad give him a hug! The next morning he was back to his usual touch-me-not stance, but then they wound up getting him into the fenced-in backyard of one of the supporters. They leashed him, took him to the vet, and took him home, where he promptly took up residence on their couch:



I love a dog story with a happy ending!