Good boy.

Yesterday, Mark and I both took a vacation day in order to recuperate from the weekend's festivities. I thought I was going to spend time going through the photos from Lauren's party so that I could post them today, but life had something else in store for me.

In the afternoon, Lauren and I had went outside to play, while Mark was already outside planting flowers in the front of the house. I let Daisy out as well (Marcus was in the front of the house with Mark) who did her usual bolt around the back yard. I walked with Lauren to the front of the house so she could help her daddy. After she was safely deposited with sprinkling can at the ready, I went to check on Daisy.

That's when I saw the giant black dog out of the corner of my eye. I had thought that it was one of our neighbor's two Akitas who like to come over to our side of the hedges and make a mess in our yard. I instantly panicked because Daisy was loose and no where to be found. So I ran to the front of the house to tell Mark what was in our yard. I was relived to find that Daisy had already fled to the front of the house (Smart girl).

When I went to find Mark, I saw that he was holding not a Akita, but a rather large and rather old black Labrador Retriever. He was wearing a dirty old red collar with no identification.

He seemed friendly enough, so I began to pet his head (Daisy followed me to the back and started giving him the sniff.). That's when I saw his sorry state. He seemed well fed, but his entire hind end down to his tale was balding and scabbing from either the long term effects of fleas or possibly mange, in addition to several other rough bald patches in various places on his body. He had a huge sty over one of his eyes that almost blocked his vision. And he wasn't fixed.

Mark put him on a leash so we could walk him over to our next door neighbor's house to see if she recognized him. Unfortunately, she did not.

So we tied him up in our backyard and gave him some water. While Mark walked around the neighborhood seeking out potential owners, Lauren and I got acquainted with him.

What we discovered was a sweet dog. He could sit and shake hands. When we would leave his side, he would bark in protest (Mark and I ended taking turns sitting with him the rest of the day so he wouldn't disturb the neighborhood peace).



And Lauren kept commenting on what a nice dog he was.

I just couldn't understand it. Someone obviously loved and cared for him once. What had happened?

I'd like to say to that this story has a happy ending and that we found his owners, but that's not how it goes. No one in our neighborhood recognized him. Unfortunately, due to his condition, we couldn't keep him around for fear he'd transfer what ever he had to our dogs and potentially to us. So in the end, we called pet control and sent him along to meet an unknown fate. Based on his age, condition and general situation, I'm afraid the outlook isn't good.

But at least I can take comfort in the fact that he got to spend one more day with a family who cared about him and let the world know that he was a good boy.