The ravine hiking community of some twenty years ago was fairly upset when it appeared that someone had abandoned a dog in the ravine. This was no runaway, no stray, for someone came across a crate, with a blanket inside it, a bowl of dog food, with the 'door' to the crate wide open and no dog in sight. The crate had been left in an obscure part of the ravine, a place off the beaten track as it were, since there was no trail there at all. They just happened to spot something odd in the distance and tracked toward it.

There had been rumours before then, of people briefly spotting a dog that was very elusive. And it seemed to those who saw it that it was fearful and untrusting; as soon as it was spotted it would melt into the forest. It wouldn't respond to appeals to come forward, nor would it express any interest in food that people brought for it into the forest. This was beyond upsetting. A day or two later the rumour went the rounds that the crate had been discovered.

And it was theorized that the dog returned to the crate nightly to sleep. The food bowl was empty, of course by then. But someone we knew well, a man and woman of our long ravine acquaintance had brought along dog food and topped up the bowl. They had a dog of their own, an unpretentious mutt that they loved beyond description and their dog returned the compliment fulsomely.

Each time they returned to where the crate was left, the bowl was empty, and they re-filled it. Several times they came across the dog and it kept its distance. But in the space of a week after they had cajoled it, spoken gently and soothingly to the dog, it began to respond. And when it did it was just a matter of time before they were able to get close enough to gain its complete trust.

That dog became a companion to their beloved dog. We would afterward see them sometimes walking both dogs in the ravine; their original dog, accustomed to seeing everyone and feeling comfortable with other dogs would behave normally; the adopted one kept its distance when others than its new people were around. Eventually, needless to say, both dogs reached the point of their final existence, and in fact died within a short time frame, one after the other, after becoming close-knit friends for the final six years of their lives.

The couple never did have the heart to adopt another dog of their own. But they informed all their ravine walking friends that if anyone ever needed a dog-sitter, someone to take care of their dog if they planned to absent themselves, they would be prepared to step in. They were the kindest-natured, unaffectedly humble people we'd ever known.

Yesterday, when we were halfway through our afternoon ravine circuit on the forest trails, we came across the husband for the first time in years. His wife, he told us, was at home, baking. He'd felt like renewing his old acquaintance with the ravine. He looked exactly as he did when we last saw him a decade ago. They live not far from the forest, a fair distance from our own street, and he urged us, if we were ever their way and saw their little white car in the driveway, to drop in.