Doggies lost and found.

Arriving home last night, a friendly, medium sized black retriever mix ran right up to the guys as they excited the vehicle. As soon as I heard Scot report, "No collar..." what has become a familiar plan was put into action.

I ran into the house to put our dogs outside into the back yard. Opening the front door to call the dog in, he RUSHED across our front yard and into the door. What a friendly boy! He looked to have a disruption in the fur where a collar usually would be... that coupled with his friendly nature and overall good shape had us hopeful that he was a well cared for and loved dog who'd just wiggled out of his home.

We took him to the emergency vet clinic just down the street to see if they could ID a chip. None was found. So he stayed the night in a portion of our garage. That night I'd already posted an ad on Craigslist, and also submitted a Found Dog entry on the Marion County Dog Control site. Our Saturday would begin with trying to locate his owner.

Around 7ish Saturday morning, I'm lying in bed awake but... not quite awake. Our window is open a bit, and I hear a car moving slowly down the street with someone yelling a name out the window.

OMG! Someone's looking for a dog! Jumping out of bed and throwing on some clothes, I run outside, run a bit down the sidewalk and jump up and down waving my arms, trying to get the driver's attention although he's a few blocks away. As I dash inside, Kris comes outside and starts running down the street. After finding shoes and keys, I rush outside to find Kris walking back (keep in mind he's in his bathrobe) and he's able to tell me the car is one block over going the other way.

Tearing out, I locate the car two streets away heading toward me. Waving them over, I ask if they've lost a dog to which the driver replies, kind of incredulously, "Yes!" After I made him describe him (black lab/retriever mix, goofy) I said, "We have him! Found him last night!"

Many times we've come upon a dog who is clearly not where they are supposed to be. We drop everything to help, because that's what I pray someone would do if one of our furkids somehow got out on their own and were in danger. We've driven them back home thanks to tags with addresses, used rabies tags to track down owners, taken dogs to the shelter to be reunited with their owners, kept them overnight (or longer) as we tried to locate owners.

Last night we drove the neighborhood at 9pm thinking we might see someone out walking with a flashlight looking for the dog we'd found last night. It was a task well worth it if we could save someone a night of hellish worry -- I cannot imagine if Winston were nowhere to be found; I'd go positively crazy.

The guy is a neighbor, not very far, and we had met before at a neighborhood picnic over a year ago. He comes inside and we chat and he then heads out to the car with Oreo, as we learned the dog was named.

And what does he do? He walks out the door with Oreo, without a collar and without a leash, refusing the ones I had offered. Seriously? Oreo is a wonderful dog, but not well trained so he runs around -- including out into the road -- and the owner is yelling and gritting his teeth as repeatedly spits commands that Oreo clearly doesn't understand, and without a leash cannot be corrected for. Finally Oreo jumps into the back of the vehicle and off they go.

Here's hoping that Oreo received a warm welcome from a household that missed him, instead of a reprimand for something for which he was not responsible.