Gandalf the Dog
On sunday we took missy to the dog park so she could go for a swim and play with all the other dog park dogs. On our way back up to the parking lot we saw a dog come shooting over the hill, towards the water, as if to say “Out of my way, people, I have swimming to do.” The curious thing was that he didn’t seem to have people with him. Soon he too noticed his lack of people. He stopped and turned around, heading back up to the parking lot. By the time we got ot the parking lot he was already deep into his search for his people, walking behind backing up cars and such. I kept an eye on him as we made our way to our own car.
After a few minutes of roaming around the parking lot, finding no people, and then walking over to the grass near the parking lot, it became apparent that the dog was not where he was supposed to be. We put Missy in the car and borrowed her leash and I went out to the street (by this time he had left the park and stumbled onto the street) to retrieve him. Luckily he was friendly and responded, after a few tries, to “come here little doggy.”
We fed him some water and talked in the parking lot with another lady who was concerned for the dog. We waited around and hoped that someone would notice that they were a dog short and come back to look at the parking lot area. No one came. We called animal control, but since it was a holiday, they said that they didn’t have anyone that could help us. After waiting around a little while more, we decided to take the dog home and figure things out from there.
We tried to guess its name. We looked up common dog names on the internet and yelled them all out at the dog, but he laid there, unimpressed. So since he was long and flowy, and since Jim didn’t really like “pacey” or “dawson,” we settled on “gandalf.” After a few more calls to animal control, we learned that the license on the dog was not current. We decided that it might be easier to hunt down the dog’s parents ourselves and took some pictures of our new gassy friend. (He farted nonstop while he was here.) The last time we talked to animal control they said that they would call in the morning and have someone pick him up. There was no call today.
So we gave the dog kibble and a bath and planned to make up flyers and post them today. This morning when I woke up I remembered that Jim found a tattoo on the dog, so I spent some time looking up tattoo registries and attempting to find parents that way. No one had a listing for the number in his ear. What good is a tattoo if you can’t figure out where it’s registered? And why are there so many registries? There’s no reason to register your dog ten times, but if you only register it once, which one do you choose? In the end the tattoo didn’t help at all.
But the rabies tag did. Although it was almost worn off, I was able to make out the name of the vet that issued the rabies tag. I called that office and read them the number on the tag. They called their client (it’s a good thing the phone number they had worked!) and left him a message to call me about their dog. In the end Kahlua (no wonder he didn’t respond to all those generic dog names we tossed at it!) was thrilled to go home with his daddy. And I was thrilled to get rid of the spoiled fartbag who totally hogged the bed last night. He was such a great dog – I think even missy kind of liked him, even though she had to share her parents with him.
