Rottweiler Rescue Read Online Free PDF

closed during ordinary business hours. I was not familiar with the place, even by reputation, but as the heat began to fade with evening, and fatigue began to creep up my spine, I was grateful for an agreement on anywhere that didn’t mean much more driving.
    The staff was expecting us. As soon as we arrived, a wide-eyed vet tech led us to a large examining room. There was only one chair in the room, and I sank into it without asking, holding Robot close to me. No one spoke in the few minutes we waited before the vet appeared.
    Dr. Jaeger was a small, round man who looked too young to have many years of practice behind him, but he had an easy way with Robot and showed none of the fear of big dogs too common in veterinarians these days. He asked me once if a muzzle would be necessary, and simply accepted my negative answer.
    He started by running a handheld scanning device over Robot’s shoulders until the microchip implanted there registered in the scanner window. He wrote the number at the top of the record he was starting for Robot, and both deputies verified the number on the scanner and initialed the record. He accepted the full plastic bag from me without comment and placed it on the counter. He used a small sharp instrument to scrape around each of Robot’s nails. The rust color of some of those scrapings made me glad to be sitting down.
    I watched as if from a great distance as Dr. Jaeger and Deputy Horton discussed the best way to get prints of Robot’s paws. In the end they unrolled what looked like a large piece of wrapping paper on the floor, dipped each of Robot’s feet in a blue liquid and walked him across the paper. The blue pawprints looked all too much like the red ones I’d seen so much earlier in the day. A wave of nausea rolled through me, and I leaned forward, elbows on thighs, head down.
    “Are you all right?” Owen Turner asked.
    “Yes. As soon as this is over I’ll be fine,” I assured him.
    “Just a little bit more.” Dr. Jaeger rubbed Robot behind one ear. “This good boy is making things easy,” he said, earning a new client for his emergency services, even though I hoped never to need them.
    “What is this?” he asked, his fingers still on the ear, but now moving over the entire length.
    “Scars,” I said. “He has a lot of scars all over.”
    I watched the vet’s skilled hands move over every inch of Robot and saw from the look on his face he didn’t like what he found any better than I did.
    “Where did this dog come from?” he asked.
    “A Good Samaritan found him more dead than alive on the side of Highway 85 north of Greeley. They took him to a vet up there, and the vet called our rescue group.”
    “Were these open wounds?”
    “No, they were healed over already. The only fresh wound was from a bullet that almost killed him. Evidently it came close enough for whoever dumped him. Maybe they thought he was dead.”
    “And maybe he didn’t care enough to make sure,” Jaeger said angrily.
    “He?” Owen Turner asked. “You know who did it?”
    “No,” I told him. “We just know the kind of person who did it, and it’s almost always men. They try to fight Rottweilers, but Rotties aren’t fighting dogs, and when the dogs don’t work out, they dump them, and sometimes they use them as bait for real fighting dogs before they dump them. The scars on Robot — he would have made somebody like that really mad, he’s totally non-aggressive towards other dogs.” And towards all people, but I didn’t bother saying that, as everyone in this room was seeing that first hand.
    The rest of the exam didn’t take long. Robot endured having blood drawn out of him and an emetic poured into him. He vomited promptly and saved himself a second dose.
    I thanked Dr. Jaeger sincerely and left him labeling various samples.
    In the parking lot, Deputy Carraher shut herself in the cruiser without a word, saving both of us any false politeness. I thanked Owen Turner and Deputy Horton