After checking the weekly update on Smokey, I found that he was still there.

Yesterday I did just what I should not have done. I went to visit Smokey and Butch.
My daughter and I went with doggie goodies in hand and hardened hearts. All the doggies were being very good dogs when we got there. It was quiet. The bad part was that it was QUIET, there were no potential adopters there. Usually there are quite a few, but yesterday, none. So sad. Well, as a lady on the other BB who lives near me who went to check Smokey out said, Smokey is just beautiful. He is a black and silver (reminds me very much of Phred's pup). He is thin. He would not eat any of the goodies we offered, but boy did he want to be petted!! My daughter obliged. I went around and kept passing out goodies to all the dogs. I would have taken any one of them home. They were all so gentle in taking their goodies. I then went over to talk to Smokey and he did that precious head tilt thing that dogs do when they are listening. He jumped up on the cage and pressed against it. Maybe his last owner looked or sounded like me. It broke my "hardened heart". I told my daughter to keep petting him and give him a lot of attention. I went over to visit with Butch, who is black with a little rust color on his feet. He was very gentle and beautiful, too.
However, the sight that crushed me was the young Akita in the corner. Beautiful dog!! Simply terrified! So heart-breaking. I don't even know if it was a he or a she. He was glued to the corner of the kennel and looked so scared! My daughter and I talked to him and he watched us, but would not leave the corner of the cage. Maybe this was his first day of being abandoned. I wish his people could have seen how devastated he was. It took all of my will power not to cry. The shelter worker would come over to him and open his gate and feed him a little food (which he wouldn't touch until the worker closed the cage). That was the saddest thing.
My daughter and I finished passing out most of the bag of goodies, talking to each of the dogs (petting Smokey), left the remainder of goodies and walked out.
I haven't been able to forget the visit since. Well, I can't save all of them and I would like to. I hope that soon someone comes to adopt them. At least they're in a kill shelter that only kills on last resort. I will, however, be watching the website and maybe taking another visit in the future to see if any have been adopted.......

Sue