At a TV station in eastern South Dakota, the shelter segment on the Friday six o'clock news runs 90 seconds

Sharing ❤️🐾 At a TV station in eastern South Dakota, the shelter segment on the Friday six o'clock news runs 90 seconds. For Nutmeg, 608 days into a kennel, 90 seconds didn't change a thing. Nutmeg is an 11-year-old hound mix with a white face and one torn ear. The shelter volunteer held the leash. Jude, the weatherman, read the card, and the phones stayed quiet. That's how it usually goes with the old ones, and afterward the dog rides back in the van. This time Jude asked the volunteer if he could sign Nutmeg out for the weekend. Saturdays aren't his shift. He came in anyway, and the weekend forecaster gave him her two minutes. At 6:14 he walked onto the set with Nutmeg on a leash. The hound stretched out on the studio floor under the seven-day forecast, and Jude did the weather standing over a sleeping dog. At the end Jude looked into the camera. "This is Nutmeg again. Nutmeg will be here tomorrow, and every night until somebody calls." His news director met him in the hallway on Monday with three emails about a dog on the set. All three wanted to know if the dog was coming back. The news director told him to keep going. Nutmeg slept through a hail warning on night six. On night 10 a camera operator put down a bath mat to keep Nutmeg's elbows off the concrete. By the second week the front desk was getting calls at 6:10 asking why the dog wasn't in the shot yet. People phoned in to say hello, and kids mailed drawings. After 18 nights there still wasn't a yes. On night 19 the phone rang at 6:31, before Jude was out of his microphone. The caller was Ione, who is 76 and drove a school bus for 30 years. Her television has been on at six every evening since her husband passed. She'd watched all 19. Jude asked what took her so long. She kept thinking somebody younger would do it, she told him. He drove Nutmeg to Ione's house himself the next morning. On night 20 the weather opened with one photograph. Nutmeg was asleep on a living room rug, in front of a television with the forecast on. On which night would you have called?