I have never walked past a lost dog. Usually, I return them. Grab them, play with them, call the phone number on their tags. If there is no number, I look up the address online and take them home, finding some way to box them in on the porch or closing the back yard gate that let them out in the first place. If there is no collar I pat them and tell them to go home, then go inside and plot the many creative ways in which I would like to read their irresponsible owners the riot act. Especially when they are sweet, like the yellow lab who played hide and seek with me and my boyfriend in a dark street last summer. When he took the lead, we darted behind cars and watched until he came back for us, giggling as we watched him circle around the vehicles until he found us. A bulldog was once so thirsty that I gave her all the rest of my water bottle before I tied her to the porch of the address on her tag. The next day I got a text from the number I had called to leave a message telling them where their dog was.
FROM: 606-539-XXXX
thank you so much for returning my dog!! she
is sick and if she doesn’t get her medicine
every day, she could die! thank you!!
I consider this text a note of gratitude from all of the dogs I have returned without thanks, but I try not to think about it in regards to the dogs who I pat and say “Go home!” We’ve always found my dog when she gets out, but if someday we hadn’t, the person who returned her to me would have won Most Valued Person of the year with ease. My dog might be my favorite relative, and losing her would be like being kicked out of school or dropping my engagement ring down a sewer drain. After today she will be lost, and no one – not us not strangers not God will find her and bring her home.