Lost & Found

Last night Dave and I were watching TV and Lizzy was starting be a pain.  She's not normally barky, but we had the front door and windows open, so she could see a lot of stuff going on outside on the street.  We try to train our dogs not to bark at every.little.thing. outside, so we ran through the commands to get her to stop and when she didn't, she lost her viewing privileges. (We closed the front door and the blinds.  Once she calms down, then we open them again.  It often takes several times of open and closing, but this was how we've taught all our dogs not to bark as passersby and it works.)

Then the dogs next door started barking and Lizzy was occasionally joining their chorus.  This was becoming a nuisance.  Dave got up and went to the side door where he heard our neighbor say something to her daughter about a loose dog.  So Dave went to the front window and looked out.

Dave: A lost dog?  I'll bet it's that fluffy white thing. (She's gotten loose before.)

Me: Oh, we should go out and help grab her.

Dave went to the front door, opened it and step outside while I tried to keep Lizzy in the house.  Sure enough a fluffy dog came gently meandering to our stoop.  But not the little 20 pound dog we were thinking of.  No, this guy was a big white and grey sheep dog, most definitely over 100 pounds.  He was so docile and came right up to Dave, allowing him to check his collar and keep a hold of him.

Lizzy thought this was awesome; no wonder she'd been barking.  I'm certain she was thinking, "You guys brought me a dog to play with!  Oh boy!"  The two played gently through the screen door, but Lizzy was emphatic about getting outside with him.  I grabbed Lizzy's leash and handed it to Dave, opening the door just a bit since I had two good sized dogs on either side that wanted to be where the other one was.  Dave found a phone number on the tag (and the dog's name, Sylvester), read it to me and I called the owners.  While I was on the phone, I let Lizzy out the back door and Dave brought Sylvester into our fenced in yard.  Unfortunately, the number was no longer in service. 

Not sure what to do next, I looked up the number for Animal Control, hoping we could find someone with a scanner to see if Sylvester was microchipped.  While I did get through, it was too late and the office was closed for the day and I had to leave a message. 

Lizzy and Sylvester played very well together.  Sylvester was a sweet boy and let us pet him and lead him with the leash.  It was clear that he just escaped from home somehow and wasn't just left to the streets.  In fact, his fur was so neatly trimmed and soft that I think he may have just been groomed in the past few days.

As Dave and I wondered what to do next, I suddenly heard a very small, but loud, voice calling for Sylvester. With the two dogs playing and jumping and only one on a leash, getting out the gate proved difficult.  I ran back in the house and out the front door only to see a Jeep turning the corner.  I called after them to wait and ran down the street.  I thought for sure I'd be hoofing it all the way to the next stop sign.  But luckily they heard me and backed up.

Me: Are you looking for your dog?

Little Girl: Yes.  His name's Sylvester.

Me: We found him.  We have him in our yard.  I just tried calling you.  We're just down here, follow me.

The mom turned the car around and followed me back to the house.  Somehow Dave had managed to get Lizzy back in the house (without Sylvester going in too) and brought him out into the driveway where he was very excited to see his family.

Mom: Thank you so much.  I'm so glad it was you who found him and not someone else.

Me: It's fine.  We foster dogs, so we know that they just get away from you sometimes and it can be hard to get them back home.  He's a really good boy, well, other than getting away from you and all.

I told the little girl it was a good thing she was loud because that's how I heard her.  Dave said Sylvester's ears perked up when he heard the girl call his name.  As Sylvester struggled to climb into the back seat, the mom helped scoop up his (big) backside to get him in.  It was nice to see a family reunited with their lost friend.  I don't think he was missing from them for very long but I'm sure it was stressful.

But the true lesson here is, if you're going to change your phone number, don't forget to change it on your dog tags too.  Hopefully no one ever needs it, but even good dogs like to wander.

PS: Sorry I didn't get a chance to take a photo of Sylvester.  I really wanted to because I knew I'd be blogging about this, but everything just happened too fast.