This past weekend I stopped at the Sportsmen’s Lodge that I belong to in order to check up on a couple of members who were working on a project.

They were fast at work frying sausages for a dinner we were having. I was helping them get things rolling and only had a few moments before I had to get to a previously scheduled appointment. I gave them an adios and headed out to my car which was hastily parked in front of the building.

Sometimes I will leave the door of the car cracked open for no real apparent reason other than I didn’t push it shut. This lack of effort is where an interesting tale begins with man’s best friend as the feature subject.

I entered the bright sunlight and naturally squinted as my eyes accustomed themselves to the light change. At first I thought that my eyes were still adjusting and I rubbed my eyelids to help with the poor vision.

It seemed that I thought that I saw a person sitting in the passenger seat of my car.

Not one to panic I walked closer and peered through the door’s window glass. No, I wasn’t mistaken, there was an uninvited passenger in my car. However, this passenger was long eared and covered with a white and black flecked fur coat.

I peeked into my driver’s door and saw a good sized hound sitting on my seat with the look of waiting to go for a Sunday drive.

I am an animal lover and like most all of God’s creatures, but I didn’t expect one to show up out of nowhere and plop into my car.

Right away I expected a prank was being pulled at my expense and I looked around suspiciously waiting for a bunch of guys to start whooping and hollering at my shocked look.

It didn’t happen and that dog just sat there grinning at me with a friendly face. She looked like a nice dog and was healthy in frame so I knew that she was someone’s dog and they would be looking for her.

I didn’t have the time to help her right at that moment so I called out to my pals Jimmy and Mike. I then told them we couldn’t let her alone on a busy road. She might get hit by a car and that would be a shame if it happened to such a nice dog. I called her out of the car and handed her over to the guys hoping that her owner would find her sooner rather than later.

I worried about that dog all day and when I returned to the lodge that evening she was gone. Slightly relieved I went about my business and started to drive out the lane with my truck … I slammed on the brakes because there in front of me appeared the hound.

She was back and giving me the look of where have you been? I opened up the door and called her over and she jumped in and curled up on the seat, after all, sportsmen are known to have a hound around the place or with them in the pickup truck.

I was meeting a bunch of sportsmen later and at this point she was becoming one of the gang. Three different guys admitted to feeding her something during the day … yikes we were getting in deep.

She slept that night on some old Eagle news print in the lodge and was a perfect lady. She was also the subject of a social media lost and found and a Humane Society chip search.

We found her name was May Belle and, yes, she was a former shelter dog that was adopted. The family was contacted by members Mark and Susan Grossman and it appeared that May Belle was an escape artist and had run away five times.

Strangely enough I couldn’t lose her and she was fast becoming an object of affection to the fellows. We would take the challenge of giving her a home with the last choice being a return to the shelter. I doubted that the fellows were going to let that happen as we reached out to all points.

As luck would have it I ran into John Huey the auctioneer who I’ve known since he was a youngster on the farm in Slippery Rock. John and I got to talking about May Belle and John was interested in seeing her. The problem now was that we had generated real interest in the dog and had lots of people talking about the clever hound.

Well, John got first crack at the dog and her charm won him over right away as he and the Mrs. decided to take her home with them. We will kind of miss the hound but I know that the Humane Society has more than a few dogs and cats that need a home too.

If they are anything like this special dog, you couldn’t go wrong in opening up your hearts and door for a pet adoption.

You can contact the Humane Society at 1015 Evans City Road, Renfrew, (724-789-1150) to visit their shelter to view animals for adoption or to make a donation of time or money.

The shelter is a no-kill shelter that does everything in its power to place animals in a good home.

May Belle thanks you all and she hopes that some of her shelter friends find a good place to land as well.

Jay Hewitt is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle.