It Could Happen To You...

While out walking with one of my dogs, Claude, in the neighborhood yesterday, I suddenly came to the conclusion I was being followed. It was one of those moments when you sense a presence behind you and then realize that actually it’s been there for a while.

I looked behind me, nothing. Walked on a few steps and looked back again. There! A flash of movement, then another one, ¬ there were two of them! What to do? They were kind of far behind me but definitely staying with me. I calculated that I could probably make it home before they came upon me.

So I hotfooted it to my house, put Claude inside, grabbed my mobile phone, car keys, and a few other supplies and raced back out the door to deal with the situation. Pretty brave, eh?

You may think so, but actually I was not being stalked by n’er do wells, but rather by two roaming dogs that I’d never seen before. One was really old, probably about 12 years. And the other one, well I’m not sure, but certainly spryer.

They were following Claude’s scent trail and urine markings for sure. The older one was part hound, quite perky, with his nose to the ground, and the shaggy younger one was sure to keep the senior guy in her sites, and she was the follower.

I decided to take my car so I could get them into it and capture them easily. Many lost dogs will simply jump into a car when invited because they are stressed and it is familiar to them. I reached them quickly as predictably, they were coming up my street. I pulled over sweet-talking all the while and knelt down to coax them to me.

The old guy came bopping over right away. He wasn’t overly friendly with me but obviously trusted people and was used to coming when called. I gently reached out for his collar, because his demeanor told me I could, and thankfully he had a tag.

I clipped a leash on him and opened the back of my car. He jumped right in. Good boy! One down, one to go. I turned my attention to his partner in crime, a shaggy black and white creature that was eyeing me suspiciously from the middle of the street. I kept the back of the car open so she could see her companion (Jano the tag read) and crouched to encourage her to join us.

She hesitated, paced a bit, Jano looked at her from the car as if to say “Come on!” but she was conflicted. It appeared she wanted to follow Jano but did not trust me. I stood still, petting Jano and started dialing the out of town number on the tag with my other hand. This wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought, so I better get the owner here ASAP.

As I made the call the pressure was too much for Miss Black & White and she ran off like a feral coyote around the corner, behind the car and out of site. Darn!

A young guy answered the phone and I told him I had one of his dogs but failed to get the other. He said yes, she was very skittish around people. I told him to come quickly and he did make it to my house in record time considering where he was when I reached him. He was very grateful I’d found Jano, he was visiting his mom for the holidays and the dogs found a weak point in the usually dogless fenced yard. He’d been out looking for them and very worried, but they’d actually traveled further than he’d thought is a short period of time.

Jano wagged happily and hopped into his owner’s car. The two of them raced off in the direction of the other dog, Daisy, to hopefully find her. I took Dune out for a walk in the neighborhood with my phone, just in case we spotted her first. No luck. I hope Jano and the young man found poor, frightened Daisy.

Another good reason to socialize your pup or to deal with any fear issues in a newly adopted dog ¬– because a tag or microchip is only useful if it can be read. When the chips are down your dog may need to depend on the kindness of strangers, but in order to do so they have to think that most strangers are okay.