We were getting ready to go get Eleanor, and I sent Amanda out to the car to get something. She came running back in, breathless. "Mom, there's a dog in our car!" I tend to leave the garage door open to give the kids the opportunity to ride bikes, and I also have the bad habit of leaving the car doors open, so I wasn't entirely surprised, although I hoped it wasn't our next door dog, since he's a Golden Retriever and very big. I also hoped it wasn't some other sort of animal that Amanda had mistaken for a dog...
Sure enough, the little neighborhood dog (a Shih-tzu, as I later found out) was snuffling around in our car after crumbs. This is the dog that followed me onto the porch last summer, and he's really sweet, but not shy at all. I got him out of the car, looked at his tag, and went inside to get the phone. He followed us right in and started looking around the table for more to eat---he seemed a bit astounded by the sheer volume of crumbs under our table. I bet he was thinking that the dog who lives here had fallen down on the job. After a bit of chasing, we got the dog out and I managed to call his owner, who said something like, "I've been a bad mommy." She promised to come over right away.
I thought I'd better go make sure the dog didn't wander away any more, so I went over to where he was peeing all over the golden retriever's yard. But I am seriously dog impaired, so I only managed to chase him around the house, then he started running down the street. I understand there are some theories of child raising that are similar to dog training, but having children definitely doesn't prepare you for trying to communicate with a dog. He disappeared behind a house, and I went back to my kids who were chasing him right down the center of the street with me (there was no traffic).
Fortunately my neighbor (the one with the golden) came out and managed to convince the dog to come to him and even took it down the block to its home. I am not intrinsically opposed to having a dog (although Michael is) but in the unlikely event that we ever have one, I think I'll need to go for a few weeks to "Dog language camp," since I was clearly unable to communicate with this one.
After all this, the question is, will I start keeping the garage door/car doors closed? I've been afraid of squirrels in the garage for some time, a hummingbird and some other birds have come into the garage, and now a dog actually came in. So keeping the doors closed makes sense. Now, will I actually close them...
Sure enough, the little neighborhood dog (a Shih-tzu, as I later found out) was snuffling around in our car after crumbs. This is the dog that followed me onto the porch last summer, and he's really sweet, but not shy at all. I got him out of the car, looked at his tag, and went inside to get the phone. He followed us right in and started looking around the table for more to eat---he seemed a bit astounded by the sheer volume of crumbs under our table. I bet he was thinking that the dog who lives here had fallen down on the job. After a bit of chasing, we got the dog out and I managed to call his owner, who said something like, "I've been a bad mommy." She promised to come over right away.
I thought I'd better go make sure the dog didn't wander away any more, so I went over to where he was peeing all over the golden retriever's yard. But I am seriously dog impaired, so I only managed to chase him around the house, then he started running down the street. I understand there are some theories of child raising that are similar to dog training, but having children definitely doesn't prepare you for trying to communicate with a dog. He disappeared behind a house, and I went back to my kids who were chasing him right down the center of the street with me (there was no traffic).
Fortunately my neighbor (the one with the golden) came out and managed to convince the dog to come to him and even took it down the block to its home. I am not intrinsically opposed to having a dog (although Michael is) but in the unlikely event that we ever have one, I think I'll need to go for a few weeks to "Dog language camp," since I was clearly unable to communicate with this one.
After all this, the question is, will I start keeping the garage door/car doors closed? I've been afraid of squirrels in the garage for some time, a hummingbird and some other birds have come into the garage, and now a dog actually came in. So keeping the doors closed makes sense. Now, will I actually close them...
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