It was before dawn, Jan. 1, 2015. My sister and I had met for a run and were about a block away from where I live when we saw a small lost dog trotting down the sidewalk across the street. It was cold, 32F, and he was on the same street where we'd seen a pack of coyotes hunting a week or two before. The dog was a terror mix and had recently been groomed.
He came when I called and we ended our run. I took him home, gave him water and snapped a few photos. While I waited for daylight I tweeted his picture. Soon I was responding to people who had seen the tweet from as far away as Canada. Twitter followers were giving suggestions and asking for updates.
Local animal shelters and vets offices were closed for the holiday. Someone suggested that I call a vet that was open for emergencies; the person who answered asked me to wait until I could take him to the shelter.
When the shelter opened a day or two later I stood in line, chatting with a woman from an animal rescue organization. I'd been in line for about an hour when his family -- mom, dad and two children -- arrived. They'd locked him in the garage while they'd had a New Year's Eve party and he'd escaped.
At the time I'd signed up with an analytics service, a company that a reporter friend used. With the messages I'd received from people asking for updates and offering advice, I'd felt the story was going "mini viral," but I was surprised that the report said that my reach that week was 81,000.
I'm a member of a group on Facebook that features lost and found pets. The members of the group are passionate about the missing and found dogs, but the shares and comments are minimal. There was nothing special about the terrier I'd found on Jan. 1 -- maybe people were checking social media more frequently on New Year's Day or maybe it was a story they enjoyed following and becoming a part of.
I don't use Pinterest every day but when I do I scroll through the notices that users have re-pinned pins I've saved. I have a couple of boards where I pin quotes; one of them contains more than 400 quotes. I save the quotes that make me laugh or make me think, or because they're so hilarious or inspiring that I want to share them.
As I've scrolled through the notifications about pins people have saved on their own boards, three of quotes I've pinned appear every time I visit. At first it was surprising, then intriguing to me.]
I searched for the pins, clicking on my own quote board and it wasn't easy to find the three quotes. Why do these three quotes continue to appear?
The only answer I can come up with -- the world wants what it wants.
Ohhh, the world wants what it wants. The world is not interested in the hundreds of other quotes. I may write a series of short stories based on the themes in these seemingly random, viral pins. I'll let you know how the experiment goes.
As for this little guy, I'm glad his family found him. Taking care of him was a fun way to start the year.
The next post will be about a weekly e-newsletter I'm editing at work and what its analytics are revealing.
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