9-11 through the eyes of an animal

I wrote a story in 2006 about South Bay folks and how 9-11 changed their lives. There was the lady who lost a friend and another who continued to show thanks to local firefighters.

But since this is a pet blog, I'm going to focus on one part of the story. It's about a dog that lost its owners during the terrorist attacks. Looking for a way to help, a Redondo Beach family decided to adopt him and give him a home.

Here's what I wrote:

They don't know exactly where he came from, and he can't tell them. But when the Ezzes family of Redondo Beach saw the dog with the sorrowful mien and the sad eyes staring at them from inside a cage at the pound, they knew they wanted to adopt him.

My daughter wanted a dog, but before she wanted to get a dog, she really wanted to lose a tooth. She was in kindergarten and everybody loses a tooth. The class makes a big deal about it. She was the only kid who didn't lose one. So I was trying to make it up to her. 'OK, when you lose a tooth, we're going to do something special. We're going to get a dog.' That's how it all started.

She wanted a Lab. I found him on the Internet. He was so sad looking, just a sad-looking face. I'm sure every dog in the pound is sad, so I'm wondering how I'm going to know this dog is for me. I'm going to see a million pit bulls and sad dogs and they all deserve a home. How do you pick one?

They said this dog has to get out of here. He doesn't deserve to be here. You need to get him out of here.

So I went to the pound. I looked at him. He's in a cage. He's all covered with poo and dirt. He wasn't even white. Just muddy. He had been in the cage since this happened.

I came home crying. I told my husband I wanted this dog. He's very cool, very sad, very thin.

I tried to research the family. I contacted the Red Cross, a bunch of organizations trying to find them because he had to have some family somewhere. Would this family want this pet? Maybe at first you don't because it reminds you of that person who died. But later on, you think, well, this is all they had. But it was a dead end. The pound would not tell me who the owners were. I just feel bad. I'm sure he had a family.

We always do something. We belong to mitzvah committees, we do stuff with our temple. With Sept. 11, the kids were very young and it was hard for them to understand. But we had to find some way to help. To us, it feels like we've done something. So when Sept. 11 comes up every year, we think of his owner. We have a moment to say that's the day the owner died, but it was our gain, too. That's why I wonder about this guy's family. Even if they didn't want the dog, they should know that somebody loves this dog.

There had to be something we could do for somebody and this was one of the nicest things we could do.