Sacramento Trip

The Kenney Family had a family reunion of sorts, as a last get together before David & Jo moved to Texas, and to celebrate Father's Day. Mary-Frances and I planned our trip out to coincide with everyone else’s arrival and departure. I woke up Saturday morning to go into work and get done what I needed to get done before we left for the weekend. We were on the road by 8am and arrived in Sacramento around 4:20pm. We were trying to race David & Jo to Sacramento Top-gear style, but they hit some major traffic delaying them.
We hung out at my sister Rebecca's new rental home, and slept at my parents house in my old bedroom. We brought Charlie with us and he loved meeting all the new people, kids and dogs. Reece especially warmed up to Charlie.
It was great, we had the whole weekend planned and ate plenty of food. We spent a lot of time loafing around John and Rebecca's place in their air-conditioning as it was 90 plus outside. My Aunt, Uncle and Grandma showed up for one day. Unfortunately Grandma wasn't feeling too well and ended up in the hospital for a couple of days, but she eventually was able to go home. Another crazy thing that happened was my cousin Shannon had her first baby a week or so earlier than expected.
But nothing, nothing prepared us for what was about to happen next…
On our way back to Mom & Dad’s from Rebecca & Johns, I saw a small white dog limping in the Arcade Church parking lot, that is next to the apartment buildings. At first glance I thought what I was seeing was a strap tied around his hind legs, causing him to limp. I slowed the car and flipped a U-turn, drove back, and parked the car in the lot. By the this time the dog was in the middle of the road. Mary-Frances was first to get out of the car and head for him. Just at this moment an "A-Team" style van sped past in front of the dog. We stood in shock thinking that we were going to watch him get hit. Once the van had passed, the little dog was still there and started to head over to us. Phew, that was close!
The dog had one of those extendable leashes tied around his neck, and he was just dragging it along as he walked. He definitely was limping and his leg appeared to be broken. Mary-Frances was able to grab the leash and held it trying to calm the dog. I got out of the car and brought Charlie over to it, hoping against hope that it would be curious about Charlie and his fear would evaporate. This seemed to do the trick.
The little dog was a miniature Poodle that we named ‘Marconi’ as that was the street we found him on. Mary-Frances picked him up and we got in our car and started to look for an emergency vet on the GPS that may be open at this hour to take a look at his leg.
We found one that was a couple of miles away, set the GPS to GO and headed out. Marconi was warming up to us quite quickly. He was licking Mary-Frances and licking Charlie. He seemed to be in good spirits despite his leg.
Well we found the Vet, but it had apparently gone out of business since the last time our GPS was updated. Crap. Time for plan B. We went back to the GPS and started to call any Vet clinic that might be open, as it was after 11pm at this point. We got a hold of someone who gave us the number for the Animal Shelter in Rancho Cordova. We were given the option to keep the dog till tomorrow at which point they would pick up the dog, or we could bring it by tonight. We opted for tonight, so we drove out to Rancho and pulled into the back of the building were we were met by the employee who was on graveyard.
She set Marconi down on his feet to see what may be wrong. She first thought it was his hips, but soon came to the same conclusion that we did, his leg was broken. However, the break was an old one and was probably callused over. She said that they will have to x-ray it to see the extent of the damage and if the leg could be saved. She took our information and let us out. She said that the owner has 25 days to claim their dog, at which time he would go up for adoption. I called the next day to see how Marconi was doing, and they said he was happy, he wasn’t chipped, so they had no way of contacting the owner. We hope all best for the little guy.
All and all our weekend in Sacramento was fun. There was food, drinks, games, hanging out, drama, ice cream, puking, pirates, water fights, hospitalizations, possessed cars, and rescued dogs. Not bad for five days.