WXRT Dog Story

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: Hail and farewell to `Chief' by Eric Zorn : Mike Kessler took the back exit out of a Northwest Side Chicago supermarket parking lot very early one morning and his headlamps fell on an eerie, pitiful sight. : A stray dog--white, filthy and wolfish, but with gleaming eyes--was feeding on the trickle of rank slime leaking from a garbage bin at the rear of the store. : [Thus began a story I wrote nearly seven years ago that drew a powerful response from readers; a story that now has an ending.] : Kessler got out of his car to investigate. He called to the dog, but it retreated warily, then escaped through a cut in a chain-link fence and into the weeds surrounding the nearby Metra tracks. : Kessler, 42, is normally a cat guy. He owned four and hadn't had a dog since he was a kid. But he couldn't get the dog at the supermarket out of his mind. : So the next day, after he finished his shift at midnight at an area radio station where he is a producer, he returned to the scene and went exploring through the fence until he spotted the dog again. Then he went into the store and brought out some food. : "He wouldn't take it from me," Kessler said. "I put it down. He'd wait until I walked, then take it when he figured it was safe." : A few weeks later, he brought a large metal bowl and filled it with water. : This was last September, and the ritual continued night after night. Kessler could get close enough only to tell that it was a white German shepherd with weakened back legs and a collar but no tags. : As winter came on, Kessler built a small shelter behind the fence, but the dog was apparently so afraid of being trapped that it never went in, even in fierce rainstorms, heavy snow and bitter cold. : Sometimes Kessler would have to walk up and down the tracks calling and whistling before the familiar eyes would shine at him out of the blackness. : Three times, Kessler said, he was stopped by police for being on railroad property. : Officers told him, yes, they'd seen the dog too. They called the dog "Chief," for his resemblance to one of their supervisors, and the rumor was he'd belonged to a drifter who had died near the tracks over the summer. : Factory workers in the area were also helping feed him, and employees on the trains were throwing scraps out the windows. No one turned him in because everyone thought the city would kill him. : Then, six months into this routine, Chief vanished. For several days, Kessler searched the miles up and down the right-of-way with no luck. He finally ended up at Chicago's Animal Care and Control shelter. : "I looked through all the cages," he said. "I saw one that looked like him, but I wasn't 100 percent sure because I'd never been that close before. But he recognized my voice and came over and barked, like he was saying, 'Hey, it's you! Help! Get me out of here!'" : Chief had been "totally freaked out" by being captured and caged after so long on the run, said shelter manager Norma Torres. "He was very fearful, very quiet." : Also half-blind and about a quarter-lame, the victim of who knows what over nobody knows how many hardscrabble years. : Not a good candidate for adoption, Torres said. But she introduced Kessler to director Maribeth Borne at Chicagoland Shepherd Rescue, a shelter operation, who in turn arranged for Kessler to be Chief's temporary foster owner. : Kessler doubted he could keep Chief--his crazy work hours, his cats--but within a week he was smitten and sold. The adoption went through. : There are no villains in this column, only heroes. Poor old Chief now has a home and friend for life. Mike Kessler has a good dog and a great story to tell. : ----------------------------------------------- : Mike Kessler got in touch every so often after that August 11, 2002 column, and yesterday sent me this photo as well as the final update: : Chief finally decided it was time to go.... : I'd been warned that big old dogs eventually lose their legs & sure enough he did: in the past year he was down to 3 legs, then in the past 2 months he was down to 2 legs, but then recently he was down to 1 leg & he couldn't get out of bed so he started looking at me funny - he stopped eating & started going to the bathroom in his bed - but he kept licking my hand saying thanks, it was time to go.... : He was too big to carry to the vet, so I asked for a house-call. He got to stay in his bed & my girlfriend & the neighbors came over to cry & pet him & say goodbye as he closed his eyes. : Kessler guesses that Chief was about 16 years old.

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