Pooch Lost and Found

It started out as a simple morning ride down a pastoral road. Wait, what is that over there to the left?

It’s a loose dog. His tongue is hanging; he’s racing frantically along the road going in the opposite direction. Am I going to callously drive by an opportunity to save an abandoned canine?

I could at least take him to the pet shelter? But what about your appointment in twenty minutes that voice of punctuality nags? I know, but I have to check out this pooch.

[About every couple of weeks or so I see stray dogs running solo – or in pairs of two – down rural back roads with no particular destination in mind. They can’t all be runaways, owners must have jettisoned some of them.]

My truck makes a u-turn and catches up with the black mid-sized dog who has turned onto a dirt road. I stop, get out, and look in the direction of the animal. He looks at me and comes my way. Early vindication of turning around sets in. The dog is very friendly but is panting feverishly, salivating.

The sunny morning temperature is in the low eighties, but the humidity is probably ninety-five percent. The dog’s agitated condition isn’t helped by the heat index combo.

He gets a few kind words, pats on the head, and follows me to get into the truck at the front passengers seat. He looks in good shape; his gums are healthy pink and his teeth are clean. His medium wavy coat isn’t matted from weeks on the road or neglect: I guess he is three to five years old. But I’m no vet.

Taxiing him to my shack only take a couple of minutes. When we get there he is eager to jump out, and follows me inside. The first thing I do is grab a couple of plastic bowls and give him a little water and a handful of dog food pellets. He starts on both and begins to calm down.

NOW WHAT DO I DO?

Oh @*$&, my meeting!

I call and explain my tardiness. It’s okay, they understand.

The next step is to take him to the pound, right? They can check him out and see if he has a chip embedded with contact information; his leather collar has no tags or other form of I.D.

Wait a minute.

Someone must know if this is a local pet and who he might belong to. And there is no better place to ID than at Jerry’s General Store. Everyone meets there.

The dog has now had time to cool off, sniff all around and rest on the cool concrete floor. He even asks for a belly rub; of course. Okay, enough of that, let’s go for another ride. He happily agrees and jumps into the co-pilots seat.

After a few minutes parked at the storefront, a patron confirms the name of the man who owns the dog. He is pretty sure. My visions of adopting and saving this guy are tempered with the good news that he will go back to his owner. I’ll return him now.

Despite Jerry’s best efforts no telephone number surfaces, so I drive down a bumpy hard-pan road to the house we think it is. No one answers, but my passenger seems to know his way around. Not wanting to simply let him loose again I put him inside the screened in front porch.

Returning to Jerry’s to close out this dog-tale another townsman confirms that the Owner just left for home: the place where I left him.

Fine, a day’s work done by ten in the morning.

AAH, the meeting!