Lost Puppy

As I was headed in to town last Friday, I found this little guy wandering along the culvert by my drive, about 3 feet away from 55 mph traffic.

What a cutie! All that chocolatey goodness! He had a collar but no tag. He looked to be only about 2 months old or so. He was obviously well cared for and I knew he had just snuck out from somewhere and he would surely be missed soon if he wasn't already. Since we live in the country, there aren't a lot of neighbors nearby. I packed him up in the van and started to make the rounds.

My first stop was the house behind us. As I drove up the drive I saw dog agility training equipment in the yard and I thought "BINGO!" I parked and wandered up to the deck but couldn't figure out which door was the front door.....maybe I was at the back of the house, I couldn't tell. I hollered, "Hello?" A man answered back. And so I met George and Gayle. Turns out they have 3 female Australian Shepherds! Gayle teaches dog agility training and they are building an arena! I was so excited because I had been wanting to take Lily for agility training. They were very very nice. I opened the door and showed them the puppy and introduced them to Lily. They cooed all over her (and dodged the excited shouting boys). But the puppy was not theirs. So away I went.

I visited every house within a half mile and no one knew where he belonged. So I came home, gave him some water, took his picture (well, I took about 6 pictures of him running around our feet before I got this one), made a poster, printed several copies and headed to town to post them. I wondered if he might have a microchip so I stopped by a vet and had him scanned. No chip (I also had Lily scanned and she was found to be chip free as well, which is really good because I was afraid she might be chipped to some former owner whom I could not find or whom would not agree to the info change). But anyway, this poor little guy was out cavorting sans proper identification and I was having a heckuva time trying to find his home.

Of course, I would have had no trouble finding a home for him. Everyone in town wanted him. But I knew someone somewhere was missing this little cutie and I didn't really want to keep him even overnight.

I tacked up some posters around town and then went home. I went in the house to check the machine before I got the kids out of the car, in case we had to deliver him somewhere, and I had been in the house maybe 3 minutes (after I had had this little puppy for about 3 hours) and lo and behold an unidentified truck comes rolling up the drive. They pulled in and parked and I wandered out to meet them. A middle aged couple slunk out of their car, tails between their legs and embarrassingly asked if I had found their puppy. YEP!

They thanked me for taking care of him and I reciprocated by informing them that the whole town was jockeying for first rights on this pup if his owner didn't show. They'd better please get a chip in him and/or a collar on him ASAP. Oh yes, of course, they'd do that right away. And off drove the very lucky couple and very cute little puppy. I hope they realize how lucky they are and make sure this doesn't happen again.