Rudis and New Year's night

We met Rudis – a medium-sized ginger crossbreed – on the morning of the first of January outside a petrol station. He was shaking but let us stroke him; he had a collar, but no tag.

At a vet clinic we read his microchip. The phone number in the register no longer worked: the owners had changed it a couple of years earlier. Luckily, the clinic where Rudis had been vaccinated had a newer contact and got in touch with them. On the fourth day Rudis went home.