Lost and found!

I was THIS close to ending up with a dog this weekend.

And when I say THIS close I mean I could’ve kept him for a couple of hours and then had to whisk him away to an animal shelter. But fortunately for little Helmud, it didn’t come to that.

I had dropped off our car for its oil change and was jogging back to our house when I nearly stumbled over a collarless chihuahua wandering the sidewalk alongside a busy road. If it were any other dog, I wouldn’t have stopped. But everyone knows that chihuahuas can’t really take care of themselves and I was afraid he would get hit or die from cold, so I stopped and looked around for his owner. No one was in sight so I knelt down to the dog and tried to get him to come to me, to no avail. He wasn’t interested in me at all, only in peeing on everything he could see (no joke). He seemed skittish when I reached out to pet him so I gave him some time and he eventually warmed up to me. So I scooped him up and headed to the apartment complex we were in front of since I thought his owner probably lived inside.

We hung out around the front of the complex for a while as I waited for someone to come out (stalker) but no one did, so I headed around the block to the alley behind the complex and made up my mind to talk to the first person I saw. As I walked down the alley, a garage opened and I saw a couple heading from their house to the garage. Before they got in their car, I approached them and asked them if this lost dog looked familiar. Imagine my shock when they told me they did, and that they were pretty sure the owner lived in the apartment building I had just been stalking and also pointed out her apartment (her balcony faced their house).

So I did what any good stalker would do – I went back to the apartment building and started ringing doorbells! A guy and his dad came out to look at the dog but told me it didn’t look like the chihuahua that did live in their building, which disheartened me. What on earth was I going to do with this dog? I couldn’t just put it back down and walk home but I also couldn’t take it anywhere since I didn’t have my car and I didn’t want to bring it to the apartment because dogs are not allowed. So I stood outside the building for a while and looked lost.

Then, miracle of miracles.

A family parked in front of the building and got out of their car. The man looked at the dog and said tentatively, “Helmud?”

Turns out the chihuahua was his mom’s dog, who did indeed live in the unit pointed out to me by the couple in the alley. And her son just happened to pull up outside while I contemplated what to do with little Helmud. So I turned him over (somewhat reluctantly by this point but I’m pretty sure Helmud peed on me) and said my goodbyes. Then I called Mark and said he was darn LUCKY that I didn’t come home with a chihuahua. And that I wanted one.