1 . It’s about 250 miles from the hills of west-central lowa to Ehlers’ home in Minnesota. During the long trip home, following a weekend of hunting, Ehlers________ about the small dog he had seen ________   alongside the road. He had ________   to coax (哄) the dog to him but, frightened, it had________ .

Back home, Ehlers was troubled by that________ dog. So, four days later, he called his friend Greg, and the two drove________. After a long and careful________, Greg saw, across a field, the dog moving________ away. Ehlers eventually succeeded in coaxing the animal to him. Nervousness and fear were replaced with________. It just started licking (舔) Ehlers’ face.

A local farmer told them the dog sounded like one ________   as lost in the local paper. The ad had a________ number for a town in southern Michigan. Ehlers________ the number of Jeff and Lisa to tell them he had________ their dog.

Jeff had________ in lowa before Thanksgiving with his dog, Rosie, but the gun shots had scared the dog off. Jeff searched________ for Rosie in the next four days.

Ehlers returned to Minnesotan, and then drove 100 miles to Minneapolis to put Rosie on a flight to Michigan. “It’s good to know there’s still someone out there who________ enough to go to that kind of ________ ,” says Lisa of Ehlers’ rescue________ .

I figured whoever lost the dog was probably just as________   to it as I am to my dogs,” says Ehlers. “If it had been my dog, I’d hope that somebody would be________ to go that extra mile.”

2 . It was a very hot day in late summer. I was working in a local wood factory. It was dangerous, back-breaking work that paid very ______ . In the year I had worked there, only four other people hadn’t quit and been ______ with new faces, for there was no other work for them to find to ______ our families.

On this day the ______ weren’t working and all of us were covered in sweat and sawdust. When I looked around, every face I saw looked angry and ______ . Abruptly, a voice called out, “Hey! There is a/an ______ in here.” A lost little deer wandered through the open loading bay doors, cowering in between the huge stacks of wood. All of us stopped to seek for her as she ______ looking for a way out.

Now most people here hunt deer for meat in the fall, but also treat them with great ______ during the rest of winter months. Therefore, all of us were soon ______ working together to free this little deer. By ______ off all the other routes we were able to guide her and ______ her back to the open door.

We watched as she ______ out of the building and back into the woods. Then we walked back in to ______ . I noticed something, though. On every face there was a ______ smile. It was as if this one single act of kindness had energized us again and ______ us of what life is all about.

4 . Scott Poore is an animal lover. He moves into the shelter kennel(犬舍) with the ______ of helping unwanted young dogs get adopted. Queen, a 3-year-old dog, has just gotten the most ____ roommate despite the narrow living room.

Since Poore is a ______ visitor at the shelter, he is familiar with all of the ______. However, little Queen in particular has really ______ his heart. Poore says that he recently began to ____ that Queen seemed to be" losing ______"in finding a forever home. "I have been ______Queen every single day for over a year and now I can ______ see her giving up," Poore wrote on his blog last week. "She used to get so ______ when I would arrive and now she just lies in her bed and ______ at me. I sit in her room and all she does is look out of her window."

So as a ______ of raising awareness of Queen's situation, Poore ______ a suitcase and moved into the dog's kennel. Poore says it has been ______ managing his work while also living at the shelter, but he is ______ to stay in the kennel until someone adopts Queen. Since he ___ the kennel earlier this week, he and his new canine roommate have been ______ the headlines of dozens of national news outlets, although no potential ______ have stepped forward.

____, this dog has finally been given a loving home after his ______ crossed with that of a woman living on the other side of the country.