Stray

It's a rare treat having a dog in the house. Oddly, the same thing happened 11 years ago when we bought our first place--The Dazzling Urbanite and I found a Husky in the alley behind the bookstore and I put her in our new house and filed a found dog report. At that time we were mostly moved in but were still taking boxes out of our last apartment, and the frantic owner called within two days and took her happy dog home. Now we're barely into our second house and we have another stray dog and I've filed another found dog report. As in the first instance, we've quickly bonded with our new houseguest, who sits calmly and stares at us while we're watching Deadwood, as if curious to understand how we can resist her charms. Frankly I can't for long.

I played sock tug-of-war, fetch, and had a blast puppy wrestling. I don't get to do those things much because of Cha's allergies. She's not sneezing yet, but of course the house isn't full of dander the way it could be later--she did ride in the car with the dog for twenty minutes with no trouble. If we don't find the owners--or if the dog was abandoned--Cha already wants to keep it. If not we have a neighbor who wants her, or maybe Cha's brother will. The dog's incredibly sweet, and a good barker. She seems to be well-disciplined and house-broken. We allowed her the run of the place last night as we slept. She found a small plastic aquarium plant we never use and took that into the kennel Julio and Yo! Adrienne lent us, but didn't chew it up. There were shoes and stuff everywhere but she picked up the one thing resembling a toy to play with. The dog refused to sleep upstairs with us. She wanted to sleep by the front door on the floor. Either it's because she's very protective, or because she thinks her owners are coming to get her. Poor little thing. I hope she wasn't ditched.

This morning I woke at 5:30 to the "I have to PEE NOW" dance. I took the dog out and two collarless pit bulls approached us quickly from the south end of Madison. Fortunately they were more curious than aggressive and I got the dog back in the house just as the pits arrived at our doorstep. Loose pitbulls in the neighborhood--great. They were scrawny little things, and obviously had been on the run for some time, but that's not a comforting sight.

If we don't get a response to the found dog report I suppose we'll have to name her and make some decisions. Yo! Adrienne said she looks like a Molly. If the owners are going to reclaim her I hope they do it soon before we become more attached. Right now I'm torn between hoping nobody calls and hoping they do.