DATELINE: BELLAIRE, Mi. — He’d had enough of being at the animal shelter, so Scout the dog climbed over one tall fence and then another, crossed a busy highway in the darkness, entered the automatic doors of a nursing home down the road, walked unnoticed into the lobby, hopped onto a couch, curled into a ball and quietly went to sleep for the night.
An astonished nurse there found him the next morning. She called Antrim County Animal Control, whose shelter happens to be just down the road. And they discovered that he’d escaped from there the night before.
Scout was a stray mutt. He had no identity, no history. The shelter staff gave him his new name, but otherwise they knew nothing about him, though they noticed he had the distinct demeanor of an abused dog. Somebody apparently once shot him too, with BBs or birdshot, because his jowl still had some kind of round pellets embedded in it. You couldn’t see them, but you could feel them if he let you touch him.
The sheriff came and took him back to the shelter …
