Marion woman spends months building trust with dog

BY DAN KEGLEY
Staff

Bennie Young wants everyone in Marion who cared for a wandering pointer this spring to know he’s doing fine and has a home.
Hers.
After weeks of coaxing the young dog to take food from her hand, Young won over the possibly once-mistreated hunting dog. Last week he was at Smyth County Animal Hospital for some minor medical care.
“You can still see his ribs, but he’s heavy compared to what he looked like,” Young said during a visit with the dog Thursday on the hospital’s lawn.
She’s named him Sona, short for Wassona Drive where Young often saw the dog over three months starting in mid-March.
She first noticed the dog on Panorama Drive where she lives. He would seem to materialize like a spirit, she said, appearing suddenly where a moment earlier there was no sign of him.
“I knew he was out alone,” Young said.
The dog appeared to crave companionship while clearly wary of people, especially men, according to Young.
The dog visited a beagle at a home in the neighborhood, and learned when women in the area walked their dogs. The Pointer would walk with them, although remaining aloof.
Young put bowls out for the dog at Virginia House Motel, one for water, one for food, and he visited them twice a day.
“He was pretty consistent,” Young said. “He would come for an 8:30 feeding in the morning and again at 7:30 in the evening.”
Soon a network of people concerned about the pointer formed, and from their reports Young saw the dog kept to an apparent “comfort zone,” she said. That zone was bounded to the west by Chatham Hill Road, and the Wassona/Panorama community to the east. The dog was seen at Marion Middle School to the south. McDonald’s and Hardee’s were favorite stops, and he got handouts at both.
“He would visit houses with dogs, and they would put out extra food,” Young said. “He was never aggressive.”
At one home, the pointer bumped the door just enough to rouse the dogs inside who would come out to play, but not loudly enough to draw out the people there, according to Young.
Up on Panorama, a family let the dog say in their backyard – until a sound like a gunshot sent the dog vaulting over the yard’s 5-foot fence, Young said. That leads her to believe perhaps the dog was traumatized by gun-training that hunters use to desensitize dogs to the noise.
Young said on several occasions she saw the dog stop at the edge of Highway 11 through town, look both ways and cross only when traffic cleared. Others, she said, reported seeing the dog narrowly miss being struck by vehicles.
He learned to follow Young’s car as he got to know her, “but he would never get in,” she said. He would tail her home, and stay there maybe 45 minutes before leaving.
Six weeks ago, he developed enough trust in Young to eat from her hand.
It’s clear in Sona’s behavior he wants to love and be loved as dog owners know they do. And he’ll respond to kindness openly before the cloud of whatever happened in his past casts its shadow on his demeanor, lowering his head and turning his eyes away.
Even a camera’s click makes him clearly uncomfortable, and Young was wondering Thursday where she and Sona might go Monday to be far away from the booms of the 4th of July.
She said Dr. Ben Halsey at the animal hospital welcomed Sona back there where Monday evening should be quiet. Sona and Halsey have a history, too. Halsey and his family were among the transient dog’s caretakers before Sona found a home and a name.
Over time, Young hopes, Sona’s trust in people will continue to grow.
“I’ve never heard him bark,” she said. “If he could talk, I think he would want to thank the people who were kind to him.”
And she’ll take Sona around to see the friends his made while he was on the loose.
“We’ll go to Hardee’s for biscuits and McDonald’s for a hamburger once in a while,” she told him.
dkegley@wythenews.com