Today in North Texas, the temperature may get up to 48°. It was below freezing last night and only 25° when I got up this morning. So before I took my little minpin out for his morning walk, I pulled on warm socks and a heavy coat and put Mac's thickest sweater on him. If it's cold where you are, I bet you dressed warmly, too.
Unfortunately for the main character in our story, there were no warm blankets or coats to protect him. The best he could do was curl up on a black trash bag in the sun and hope he could get a little warmer from the reflected heat.
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That's when a St. Louis couple happened to pass the trash on the roadside while on a tour of bourbon distilleries in Kentucky. The dog was alone on an empty stretch of road, but they thought at first that he might belong to one of the nearby farms. With a concerned look at each other, they decided if he was still there when they finished touring a distillery close-by, they would investigate.
On their way back, they looked for the puppy. There he was, trembling from the cold with his ribs showing. Obviously, if he belonged to someone who lived in the area, they were doing a lousy job of caring for him. So they decided to take the friendly pup along.
"He looked so lonely and cold curled up on the bag of trash," Katharine Kulka said. Spreading a blanket on the backseat, they lifted the puppy into the car and went on their way.
After a little while, when he warmed up in the car, the pup sat up, feeling much better about life. For the first time in what looked like awhile, things were looking up for him.
With the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday the next day, the Kulkas weren't sure the Kentucky Humane Society would be open. Fortunately, it was.
"We don’t know if he was abandoned or was a stray," Andrea Blair, PR & marketing director for KHS, related. "He was found on a cold day with temperatures in the teens and the wind chill in the single digits. He was not microchipped, not neutered, no tags and no collar."
The dog his rescuers called "Whiskey" wouldn't have to wait long at the shelter. Right away, a young couple with four small boys recognized the wonderful addition he would make to their family.
Whiskey now lives in a home that is always warm, where he gets plenty to eat and snuggly spots to sleep in. Of course, with four little boys to play with, he never lacks for attention, either.
Now he looks at the cold through the panes of a window instead of lying in it, freezing and hungry. His life has changed forever.
Just look at that smile! Whiskey was out in the snow for who knows what reason. Perhaps it was so that a compassionate couple could rescue him, turn him over to the committed folks at the shelter, just so he'd be there when his new family came in looking for the perfect dog. I'm so glad they found him!
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Share Whiskey's story with your friends. If you'd like to contribute to help the Kentucky Humane Society save more animals like Whiskey, you can do so here. Or get in touch with a shelter near you. The network of rescuers across the globe always need help!