Wild Goose Chase

Before I tell you this story, I have to tell you another. A couple of days ago, my son came home from school telling me that his friend had lost a dog they had just adopted. The friend asked my son to be on the lookout for the dog. As is typical with six-year-olds, not much of a description of the dog was provided. This evening, my dear son showed up at our front door with a big brown dog. The dog had a collar, but the tag had no phone number on it. "This is my friend's dog!" he announced. "Great! What's your friend's phone number?" I asked. "I don't know." "Where does he live?" "Somewhere around here. He rides the bus with me." Okay. That told me a lot. I went to the class directory and figured out who the kid was. Then I called his house. Of course nobody was home. We left a message. Meanwhile, my dog was just thrilled to have a female friend. I quickly crated my dog so he wouldn't do any damage. My husband and I decided to walk around the neighborhood with this dog and see if we could find its home. So there we were, dragging the kids around the neighborhood, listening to my husband rant about all of the varmits in our house. The dog appeared to know where she was going, and didn't mind being walked by strange people. We walked all over the neighborhood asking everyone we saw if they knew the dog. To make a long story short, the dog was not the friend's missing dog. A neighbor who was out walking, said she had seen our furry visitor roaming around the neighborhood for years. Apparently the owner just lets his dog roam. We walked back home and released the dog. "Oh, can't we keep it?" my daughter begged. NO!