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The December 12th message on Paula's answering machine asked her to contact
a young couple in Woodside about a seven year old dalmatian they had found.
Upon arrival at their house, Paula's dals bounced out of the van
and the old dog danced with life. His tail wagged so hard it
nearly knocked him over.
It seems that while driving home the day after Thanksgiving, the
couple spotted a dalmatian
trotting along a winding Woodside road near the top of the mountain.
Having previously lost a dog of their own, the couple picked up
the dog they named "Bandit" and began an all-out effort to find
his owner. A telephone hot-line spread the word and posters were
circulated in the area.
A grapefruit sized mass on the left side of Bandit's stomach and apparent soreness in the neck and shoulder area prompted a veternary evaluation.
The mass was uncomfortable but benign. The soreness suggested contact
with a car or arthritis.
Only a day before Bandit's was found, Thanksgiving Day, a hiker in a desolate
and isolated area of the mountain came across two dalmatians tied to a
Manzanita bush. She had not given it much thought until the weekend
after Christmas when she read a flyer about Bandit and the location where
he had been found. The gravity of the situation struck the girl, and
she went back to the location where she had seen the two dogs. There
lay the lifeless body of a female dalmatian - Bandit's companion - still
tied to the bush.
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