Just Call Me the Pied Piper

A few months ago, I posted about my adventures saving my first stray dog. My friend Tiffany, also a dog lover, told me that once you save a stray dog, you become a stray dog magnet. Turns out, she might be right.

Tonight my grocery store planning failed me. I don't like Thursdays, because whatever I bought on Sunday usually doesn't sound good to me five days later. It's hard to plan that far ahead. Tonight we were going to have baked potatoes, but the potatoes were sprouting eyes, so we decided against it. I decided to go out to Wal-Mart in a last ditch effort to salvage my CFO (chief food officer) status and get the makings of tacos.

On the way to the store, I saw an adorable little puppy that looked quite like Blazer RUN across a busy street. It was like sprinting, frolicking, having a great time in the middle of the road. There were tons of cars passing the dog, but none stopped. The dog kept running and I (of course) immediately turned the car around and went after it. I jumped out calling for the dog and (of course) it came bounding towards me and into my arms. I scooped it up, put it in my lap in the car, and started driving back home. At this point, I was literally laughing out loud. I tried calling Brent to warn him what I was bringing home, but he didn't answer. So I opened the back door of our house and yelled, "Um, honey, can you come here for a second please?" haha... and there I was holding a dog that's not ours.

The dog had a collar but no tags. We immediately came up with a 6-pronged plan:

(1) Drive around the neighborhood and look for people looking for a dog

and if that doesn't work,

(2) Call the neighborhood "lost dogs" line and see if someone is looking for a lost dog

and if that doesn't work,

(3) Give the dog a bath and

(4) Keep it for the night and

(5) Find a vet in the morning that will scan it for a microchip

and if that doesn't work,

(6) Find a home for the dog by shamelessly emailing cute photos to my entire school district

Well, luckily we didn't have to get past step #1.

We drove around the neighborhood for five minutes and came across a minivan stopping and asking every jogger if they had seen a dog. Success. We held up the dog and the lady squealed, "That's him!" And here's where my dream really came true: The minivan was full of kids screaming, "THANK YOU!!!" They were so happy to have their dog back.

As we were driving home, I said, "Honey, I'm sorry. I know I'm crazy. But that was kind of fun, right??" Brent answered, "Yes. But why don't you just tie strings of tin cans behind your car so all the dogs in the neighborhood will follow you home?!"

And what about our dinner, you might ask? Well, we're currently waiting for our pizza to be delivered. Becasue let's be honest: A girl can only do so much in one day.