Smell of steak too hard for pup to resist

Fred Moore holds the dog lured to his house by the smells of a steak being cooked on a George Foreman grill Wednesday evening. Moore had been seeing the dog roaming his neighborhood over the previous five days. Photo by Mark Wineka, Salisbury Post

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By Mark Wineka

mwineka@salisburypost.com

SALISBURY — The smells coming from Fred Moore’s George Foreman grill were just too hard to resist Wednesday evening.

They attracted a friendly pit bull onto Moore’s front porch. The female pup even tried to push into Moore’s house when he went to investigate the visitor at his doorstep.

Moore had seen the all-white, gangly dog carousing the neighborhood over the previous five days.

This time, he decided to sacrifice the steak he was cooking and feed it to the hungry dog as an enticement for her to stay longer.

“I called everyone I could think of to come get this pit bull,” said Moore, a former Rowan County magistrate.

She clearly was someone’s pet. She had a collar with tags denoting a recent rabies vaccination. And Moore couldn’t get over how friendly she was, especially as he kept feeding her.

She even followed commands such as “Sit” and “Lie down.”

Over time, Moore was able to tie the dog loosely to the tree in his front yard until a Rowan County Animal Control officer could arrive.

The longer Moore waited, the more attached he became to the pup, which he started calling Petey, because she looked a lot like the dog from the old “Our Gang” series.

Moore also couldn’t overlook the dog’s resemblance to an all-white dog named Rex that he owned back in the 1950s.

Besides the steak, the dog downed Moore’s black-eyed peas and pecan pie with whipped cream on top.

Over the previous days, Moore had seen her trying to eat from his bird feeders or munching on food he had been setting out in the backyard for two foxes.

“She’s obviously a pet, but she’s starving to death,” Moore said.

Animal Control Officer David Yaninas eventually picked up the pit bull Wednesday night and took her to the pound on Julian Road. Moore hated to see the dog go, but hoped her rabies tags would lead to the owner.

“Hopefully, they won’t put that little doggie to sleep — you can quote me on that,” Moore said.

Yaninas reported Thursday afternoon the dog’s owner was contacted, thanks to the vaccination, and able to pick her up that morning.

Yaninas also remarked on how friendly “Petey” was.

That’s a happy ending — something Yaninas wishes could happen for a lot more dogs on the adoptive side of the county kennel.

“There are plenty of other dogs like her,” he said.

You never know until you visit the pound. Like the smells from a George Foreman grill, they might be too hard to resist.

Contact Mark Wineka at 704-797-4263, or mwineka@salisburypost.com.