Easy come, easy go

Late this afternoon My Lovely Wife was just getting home from the grocery store, and our sobriety-challenged neighbor Andy walked up the driveway with a beautiful stray dog following him.

The dog appeared to have a broken right rear foot and a contusion on her left hindquarter, leading me to believe she'd been hit by a car. She was very calm and sweet-tempered, though.

Andy said he wasn't willing to do anything for this dog, but, after hesitating, said if we wanted to seek treatment for her leg he would throw in some money. We didn't commit at that moment to doing anything either, as we felt we were having a dog dumped on us. Andy walked away and we walked inside.

I couldn't stand the thought of that poor dog, with her pale blue eyes and her nice disposition, hobbling around out there, so I said something to MLW. We agreed to put her in our fenced back yard while we made an effort to find her people. She was well fed and well cared for, so we knew someone would be missing her.

We contacted our neighborhood association president, who sent an email to everyone in the neighborhood, and I posted an ad on craigslist. Then we went out to talk to some of our neighbors who we thought might know whose dog this was.

One of those neighbors, a guy named Richard who has an ancient Mustang parked in his driveway, has two dogs, both of whom were accounted for. But he was kind enough to bag up about three servings of dog food to take home to our urchin.

After checking with a couple of other neighbors -- one of whom may have provided a good lead to the owner -- I went home, put the food in a pie pan and took it out to the backyard.

"Doggie! I have food for you! Come and get it! ... Doggie! ... Doggie?"

She was gone.

We searched all over that yard, under the shed, under the deck, behind the composter ... nothing. Gone.

Somehow that dog, who I guessed was half Malamute and half ... something else, had either leapt over the fence with her one good hind leg or squeezed through a narrow opening by the gate. Neither one seems plausible.

I feel terrible about this, and I don't really know why. She hadn't acted afraid or uncomfortable around me at all, and didn't seem to have a problem with our yard. I was trying to help the poor thing, and she took off. I'm almost ... insulted.

Maybe I was looking forward to being somebody's hero when the reunion happened. Maybe I liked playing the role of rescuer. Maybe I secretly hoped I'd get to keep her.

I don't know, but it's all over as quickly as it began. I just hope she found her way home.