Life of the Lintee Bean

I was walking home the other night when I saw a dog – a poor lonely, lost dog. I am NOT a dog person. I like dogs, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve never had a dog and know next-to-nothing about interacting with dogs. This, however, was a really friendly dog, and he came right up to me and introduced himself. He had on a collar, with tags, and they said his name was “Sandy”.

So, as Sandy-the-dog was so VERY nice and friendly, I was able to look at his tags and call the phone number on them. It was disconnected.

There was an address on the tags, and Sandy-the-dog and I set off in the direction of what was hopefully his home. I didn’t have a leash, obviously, so I’m walking hunched over, holding his collar… but Sandy-the-dog doesn’t seem to mind. He seems to think this is great fun, going for a walk, and grateful to have some company rather than wandering around by himself

So, we walk and we walk and we finally get to the address on his collar (about 3/4 of a mile from where I’d found him) – but no one is home. It doesn’t even look like anyone has been there for a while.

So, now what? Sandy-the-dog and I talk it over for a while. Then we decide to go to my house and figure out what to do next. So, off we go again. At one point his collar slips off ENTIRELY but thankfully Sandy-the-dog is a VERY good dog and STAYS and we get it back on and continue our journey.

We get to my house and Sandy is VERY excited about running around in my back yard while I disarm the alarm and open the basement door, and he’s VERY excited about going in the house and he’s VERY excited about the basement and VERY excited about jumping up on the cot and investigating everything.

Next I call the microchip company listed on his tag. I must say, they’re not particularly helpful. They didn’t even take my information, in case the owner calls looking for him. They just give me the phone number of someone at Animal Care & Control, which is apparently where Sandy was adopted. So, I call that number, and it’s someone that’s out on vacation. I call the general Animal Care & Control number, which just has a recorded message telling me the hours I can come in to look for my lost pet.

At this point, I’m getting desperate. While Sandy-the-dog is VERY nice, I really don’t know much about dogs and the idea of keeping him overnight isn’t appealing. So I call my veterinary clinic. I talk to one of the friendly staff members, tell her my dilemma, and she graciously says I can take the dog there. They’ll keep him overnight for me, and have him transferred to Animal Care & Control in the morning. I ask her a few questions – like how exactly do you ride with a dog in the car? Do they wear seatbelts? (No, they don’t, apparently you just hope for the best.)

So now. Sandy-the-dog and I are going for a ride in the CAR! Sandy-the-dog is VERY excited and happy about going for a ride in the car! He hops in the back seat, and we’re off. Then he hops in the front seat. Very cute, but distracting – so I ask him to SIT, and he happily sits on my handbag. He’s very happy, he’s smiling, and he’s happy, happy, happy. He hops into the back seat, then hops back in the front seat… SIT! He sits on my handbag. He leans over and gives me lots of grateful kisses on the arm, hand and face.

I drop him off at my vet clinic, where they are super nice and don’t even charge me for boarding him. I admit, I shed a few tears on the drive home. I know only 14% of dogs relinquished to shelters are reunited with their owners, and the failed contact attempts so far don’t look promising.

The next morning, I decide to walk by the address on Sandy-the-dog’s tags one more time, and put a note on the door as to his whereabouts. Someone obviously loved Sandy enough to train him well, maybe they’d go back to their old home, looking for him.

Sandy-the-dog’s story does have a happy ending. I got a call from the vet’s office saying Sandy’s owner found my note on the door of their old house. They’d moved, and hadn’t updated Sandy’s tags yet when Sandy had gotten loose. They retrieved him from the vet, and he was back home.

Submitted for publication in The Greeley Citizen.