Todd hit the lottery

Lasts week, while driving back from an assignment, I got behind a pickup truck pulling a trailer. Up ahead, I saw something small on the edge of the road, and the next few seconds played out in what seemed like slow motion.

A puppy ran into the road directly in front of the truck. Thankfully, the driver wasn't driving fast and reacted quickly to dodge the tiny creature.

I slammed on the breaks and stopped in the center of the road to block traffic.

The commotion frightened the puppy, and it ran back into the tall weeds at the edge of the road. It had rained hard the night before, and the thigh-high grass was still wet.

The little dog had wallowed out a small circle in the tall weeds. As I approached, it laid down in his "shelter" shaking and whimpering.

I looked around, and there were no houses nearby. Someone had probably tossed the pup out to manage on its own.

My pants were already wet, so I squatted down and whistled gently. To my surprise, it began wagging its tail, stood, and took tentative steps toward me.  A moment later, I scooped him up.  He trembled in my hands.

As I waded back through the grass, a car approached from the rear. I think she was annoyed that I was blocking the road until she saw the tiny dog.

Once home, the first thing out of Jilda's mouth was, "It's beautiful, but we CANNOT adopt another dog." I knew she was right, no matter how cute the pup was.

Calling my friend at the local shelter, I told her I'd found a dog and asked if she would consider helping to find it a forever home.

She said finding homes for cute puppies was easy. I told her I'd bring it down the next day.

I took a picture and posted it on social media, but I was fairly sure no one would claim the pup.

I was afraid that one of our big dogs might hurt the pup, so I texted our niece Samantha to ask if she could keep the pup until I could take it to the rescue shelter the next morning. She agreed.

The next morning, she sent me a text saying that she and her son Jordan had decided that they would like to keep the puppy.

I felt a little bad at first until I saw them walking up the hill to our house with the little dog happily running ahead of them.

A few days later, they named the "pupper"  Todd. It looks to me like Todd hit the lottery?