Jaci Dawn

I spent most of today visiting with my youngest. But as fun as it was (and I am so incredibly proud of her), all I wanted when I got back home was to sit down with a nice cold beer and decompress. There was a lot of information to process and I wanted to think and pray about it.

I let the dogs out of their daytime kennels and while they ran around the back yard, I got my drink (and some clippers to use to harvest my two!! ripe tomatoes). Walked out the backdoor and saw this:

Except it wasn’t latched. And the gate was wide open. And Murphy was standing in the middle of the street.

I quickly gathered my wits, grabbed the leash and some bribes and set out.

Murphy was the easiest. I have no idea what has come over our former wild child of a dog, but he padded right back to me and allowed me to snap the leash onto his collar without playing any games. I put him in the house and set out.

“He went thattaway” said the guy on the corner.

“He’s down there,” said the people having a barbecue.

“He just went around the corner,” said the couple in the station wagon.

I was sure he’d get to the very busy main street and get scared and come back up toward me. But, no… I saw him disappear around the corner, trotting up the bike lane. He has four legs and he had a head start. I have two, I’m somewhat out of shape, and it was 81 degrees and muggy.

A little blue car zipped around the corner, pulled a “U-ie” and a 20-something woman opened her passenger door. “Get in,” she said. “We can catch him sooner if I help you!”

She moved her groceries and I climbed into a strangers car, something I haven’t done since I was in my 20’s and lived in a really small town where strangers often gave other strangers rides across town. Momentarily, it felt surreal.

We tracked him to a back yard and I set off on foot again.

Now I had him but you know what? He was totally enjoying being foot loose and naughty and he pointedly ignored me. And headed back out to the very busy street.

I lost the woman in the blue car. I doggedly (pun intended) kept after Harvey but he ducked into a back yard that appeared to go all the way through to another street and he was headed that way. DAMN!

And suddenly the blue car was back! “Where’s he go?” she asked. We drove around the block. I told her my big fear was he’d see a cat and kill it. She kept making jokes, “Oh, there’s a big cat and it’s OK. He didn’t go that way!” Her name was Brittany and she lives close to me. She asked if I had managed to catch the ‘black dog’, telling me in not-so-many words that she had been by my house and seen both dogs on the lam. She decided then to help whoever owned them and actually followed Harvey in her car, hoping to catch sight of a frantic owner.

She did. And I was pretty frantic. I probably looked like an insane 54 year old woman in a tie-dye tee shirt.

We returned to the place where I last saw him and she stopped. I knocked on the front door and waited. A very big man opened and I explained to him that a large white dog was trapped in his back yard.

In moments, I was in a stranger’s backyard, wading through a hedgerow of blackberries (his yard ended at the blackberries and I trespassed onto someone’s unkept lot). Harvey saw me coming but studiously kept trying to get away. I kept walking into spider webs.

I finally had him cornered and he knew it. He came to me expecting to get beat, but all I did was hook the leash onto his collar and he headed back out. The big man laid a piece of plywood over the blackberries so I wouldn’t have to wade through them again.

The woman in the blue car – Brittany was her name – offered us a ride home, but I declined. We were only half a mile from home and I felt Harvey needed to walk. Brittany still gave me a big hug and said she had two dogs at home.

I profusely thanked everyone who helped me: the big man and his wife, and especially Brittany.

Then we came home.

The “black” dog is home safe.

The white dog is home, safe and guilty!

Oh, my, but he acted guilty!

He was not entirely sound. I think Harvey met a blackberry thorn.

Lucky it wasn’t any closer to his eye.

Me? I brought home five or six spiders and their webs in my hair. I needed a shower and deoderant. But I’m in slightly better shape than I thought I was and I am truly blessed to live in an area where people are mostly kind and friendly and helpful.

And whereever Brittany is tonight, I send her the biggest hugs ever! Thank you, Brittany-stranger-in-a-blue-car.