Thursday, December 30, 2010

Brutus Finds a Home

There are many homeless dogs in Mitzpe Ramon. Some are dumped here by uncaring owners, some beautiful animals, some mutts, all homeless, all looking for food and water. Mitzpe Ramon has no animal control officer or facilities to keep them. They wander the streets looking for handouts, eating garbage. When winter comes, most die of exposure. It's heartbreaking how people can be so cruel to their pets.

One homeless animal that kept coming around our apartment was a dog we called Brutus. He was huge, with giant paws and long legs who could cover a mile in a single stride, even with a game leg. He was a gentle giant. He would come up behind you and nuzzle your hand, never putting it in his mouth. We felt sorry for him and fed and watered him whenever he came around, despite my policy of not feeding homeless animals.

The other day Pam saw Brutus with a collar and leash in the company of people she had never seen before. It turns out they had returned to Mitzpe Ramon after a year abroad. Brutus was their pet who had run away from a family in whose charge they left him shortly after they left Israel. Hooray - Brutus had a home and family.

It turns out that Brutus was actually "Swift", so called because he liked to chew books as a puppy, and the first book he ate was Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels". It was a good name for a dog who could run so fast.

Brutus, aka "Swift", no longer homeless.

Enhanced by Zemanta

2 comments:

  1. Hi to you!
    those are Ildar and Kate - owners of Swift... We were surprised to see this post. This is so nice of you to write this story. Unfortunately, for some misunderstanding probably. The story is not so correct. I would say - not correct at all... Swift aka Brutus aka King aka Jumbo and on and on, was always a homeless dog. We never knew him as a puppy.. He was abandoned by his owner, in Mitzpe, and was already homeles when we came here (about two years or so). We met him a lot on the street, fed him sometimes. He was playing wit our dogs (in those times we shared an apartment with our friends, and we had about 2 jr three of them). And then after some time (A year or so we rented a separate apartment already) he came to our house (by the way - it was all his initiative)... He was already a grown up dog when he came. Then yep, we left him to some friend for around three months - and all this time he was at home.. He was hanging around all by himself thats true, because the guy who stayed with him was no sot responsible. But he never ran away. When we came back - we found him at home, he was looking not so good. but since we came back he got much better. About the history of his name - His first owner (we met him occasionally ) called him Zet... Then on the street people called him a lot of names... King, Jumbo etc... We searched for a name - and the first idea was just to whistle for him to come.. So we called him ¨Whistle¨ (in russian ¨Svist¨), after some time he started to feel as an owner of the house - and started to chew things - mostly books, so we canged the name to Swift=) Thats the true story=) Not so romantic may be... But true=) Now Swift is all healthy, all happy, never left alone. =) We found a puppy friend for him=) For the moment they are sleeping curled together (i wish i had a camera to take a picture of this sweet pare=).
    We wish you best=) Thank you for your blog.
    Ildar and Katy (the owners of Swift).

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you for setting the story straight. It's good to know that Swift/Brutus is healthy and happy. I wish you could share a picture of him with his new pal. We would love to post it. Keep in touch!

    /Ira

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts with Thumbnails