Encompass Rehab is a lovely visit in a wonderful rehabilitation facility. The staff are very friendly and welcome the therapy dogs as much as the patients do. The visit is in the gym area just as patients are beginning their afternoon therapy sessions. A lot of the patients are missing their own pets so they are happy to see the therapy dogs and hopefully it gives them a little motivation to work hard to be able to go home.
Hurricane Helene was the storm of the century. It devestated western North Carolina and ravished our area. With every storm, there is a rainbow, and we received our little Teddy, Here is his story…..…We have told some of the story many times of the happy day my husband, Jim and I found our precious, Teddy. This is the first time we have written it down.
It was on Saturday October 16, about 3 weeks after Hurricane Helene came through Greenville. Jim had to visit houses in Greenville for his work, doing interviews with residents. We were in an older neighborhood in West Greenville . I was driving and as we were getting close to the address, we could see a little fluffy dog walking toward us in the street. We stopped in front of the house we needed to visit, and the dog was right in front of the house we needed to visit.
As Jim got out of the car and walked to the house, the dog close to the car and watched him intently as he walked away. I got out of the car and walked around the car to greet him. He walked up to me and put both paws on my knees. He had the biggest eyes and I thought he was the cutest dog I had ever seen! As I petted his head, I noted he only had a flea colar but no colar with an ID tag. When Jim came back to the car, he talked to the dog for a few minutes, and then we had to leave and go to the next address. As soon as he finished, about 2 hours later, I told him, we were going back to check on that little dog.
When we got back to the street, I walked up to the house next door to the one we had stopped at earlier. It had a chain-link fence around it, and there were empty feed cans by the mail box. There was a gate across the driveway with a gate and a lock on the gate Just inside the gate, there was a pile of old boards stacked and the house did not look as if anyone lived there. I called for a dog and he came right away and scooted under the gate, where he had made a little tunnel getting in and out of the yard. I went to several neighbors to get information about the dog. I confirmed that no one lived in the two houses, and they did not know where the dog came from. One of them suggested that if we were interested in taking the dog, it would be good for everyone.
As I came back to the car, Jim told me to get in the back seat with the dog while he would drive. Off we went to go home! On the way home, he seemed very calm in the car. I was petting his head and by the time we got to a stop sign, he was laying on his back with his eyes closed. As I looked at him, I thought he looked like a Teddy.
We checked “lost dog” listings online for a couple weeksbut found nothing. ~ Jim and Jennifer Comensoli
My name is Michele and this is Ellie Mae the Therapy dog. We are a team who volunteers at two Anderson County elementary schools. We work with the school counselors there. They bring students to us who need to work on their confidence in reading or maybe just some extra encouragement for that day. Sometimes as a reward for being extra good. After all, who wouldn’t want to spend time with Ellie Mae ??
