Our van crossed into Virginia. The sun was setting. The greenery of the Old Dominion State passed our windows at 55 mph as we hunted for an acceptable place to pee.

We pulled over at an old gas station. It was in the middle of the sticks. With old guys sitting out front. The kind of old men who wear seed caps and suspenders.

I ran inside, moving stiff-legged, the unmistakable gait of a man with a compromised urinary system.

The bathroom was “clean-ish.” Not acceptable. But okay. There was no toilet paper. There were cobwebs everywhere, containing spiders who had evidently died of old age.

When I emerged from the privy, my hands were dripping wet from washing them. I informed the cashier there were no paper towels in the bathroom.

“I believe you’re out of towels,” I said.

She just blinked.

“Just wipe’em on your pants,” she said.

So there it was.

The cashier was busy watching television to pay attention to me. The glowing plasma screen held her focus.

I leaned in for a better look, wiping my hands on my trousers. On the screen was the image of a dog. Happy. Open-mouthed smile. Tongue out.

“You heard about this dog?” said the cashier vacantly.

“No,” I said.

She turned up the volume. “This dog is famous.”

The news reporter said the dog was from Rustburg, Virginia. The dog is named Sweet Sienna. She has become a celebrity in this state. It all happened a few days ago in Campbell County.

There was a pet adoption event. Pets were wandering around, greeting people, licking hands, sniffing things, peeing on stuff, etc.

Sienna broke away from the crowd of animals and shelter employees and sat before a man in the distance. She wouldn’t leave him alone. She looked him in the eyes and kept putting her paws on his legs.

Sienna’s shelter, named the Friends of Campbell County Animal Control of Virginia, told reporters, “…It wasn’t prompted. It was [Sienna’s] pure intuition.”

The dog kept pawing at the man’s leg, and making a fuss. But the man wasn’t moving.

The man’s name was Josh Davis. As it turns out, Josh had forgotten to take his epilepsy medication that morning. At that moment, he was having a seizure. And although Sienna, just an ordinary shelter dog, was not trained to detect medical emergencies, she was alerting.

“It looked like something you’d see in the movies,” Josh’s wife remarked. “…We were all kind of standing around, like, ‘Did that just happen?’”

Sienna just felt it. She just knew.

After the shelter announced what had happened, Sienna’s story broke the internet. She made national news. The dog’s picture was everywhere. Within 24 hours, adoption requests for the animal were coming from all over the nation.

This week, Sienna finally found a new Virginia home. She went to the Sweeney family. And here’s where things get weird:

Sharon Sweeney, the woman who adopted Sienna, had already applied to adopt Sienna long before Sienna became a big deal. And as it happens, Sharon Sweeney’s oldest son has epilepsy.

“Isn’t that amazing?” said the cashier.

“It really is,” I said.

“I have two rescues at home,” said the young woman.

“Same here.”

“I just wish more people would adopt rescues instead of going to breeders. I wish people could understand that shelter dogs really have amazing hearts.”

Then she smiled at me. I smiled at her. And after our tender moment, I’d like to believe that magnificent young woman finally cleaned the bathroom.