Deborah Halverson's Blog

We saved a dog’s life yesterday. It wasn’t how we intended our afternoon to go. I’d meticulously mapped out the day to put us at our friend Randy’s house at 2pm for a fabulous “play date” of trains and legos (the man is a lego and train fanatic, a whoppin’ combo for three five-year-old boys), and then back at home by 3:30 to ride the new bikes with Daddy, something all the Halverson men have been craving since the boys got their birthday bikes on Tuesday. My husband is a cyclist, and the fact that he had to go to work each day while I took the boys to the park to ride bikes has been killing him. So the bike riding session was highly anticipated by all.

But minutes after leaving Randy’s house, we spotted a small dog weaving in and out of traffic, and our finely sculpted schedule went out the window. As much as I knew those boys and their dad were wanting to bike, I couldn’t drive away from the lost dog. I couldn’t let him be someone else’s problem. I certainly couldn’t let him be the newest addition to the Dead Animal Removal Department’s truck. I may not be a dog fan, and my boys may be TERRIFIED of unknown dogs, but I’m not cruel. And neither are my boys. As horrified as they were by my decision to turn the car around and step out to coax over a very possibly terrified, rabid, vicious, or otherwise undesireable animal, they were just as horrified when I told them the alternative: to drive away and leave the dog running in the streets. They knew the risks of that as well as I did.

The boys are big fans of the Eleanor Estes book GINGER PYE. In that classic novel, a young boy and girl—Jerry and Rachel Pye—lose their new dog Ginger. My sons related yesterday’s lost dog to Ginger’s predicament and thus allowed me to stop… as long as I didn’t open any doors or let the animal in the car. I wasn’t sure how I’d accomplish anything under those restrictions, but I gave it my best shot. Squeezing myself out of the car (and yes, violating their first DO NOT DO rule), I approached the dog. It came to me, flopped down on the sidewalk at my feet, then flipped over on its back, inviting a tummy scratch. The dog was well-groomed and sweet as sugar. Clearly, it was from a loving home. But, as I quickly discovered, IT HAD NO TAGS. Shoot! What to do? I racked my brain, realizing that the biking event was now officially in jeopardy. Try as I might, though, the best solution I could come up with was to call Animal Control and then wait for them to arrive. I told the boys. We pow-wowed and brainstormed and, finally, unanimously, decided to wait.

I called my husband and broke the news. I felt terrible about it. He was home from work already and waiting to ride. Still, there was amusement and pride in his voice as he encouraged us to stay: “Stay,” he said. “That little doggie’s life may depend on this.” We thought so, too.

But, man, the wait was long. Long enough for the boys got over their fear and venture out of the car, one by one, to pet the dog. Before that, they’d just hung out of the car window and talked to the dog from above . . . far out of biting distance. Indeed, they are still very traumatized by the faux dog attack in England last year. The last boy, waiting until I agreed to life the dog up, urged us to start knocking on neighborhood doors. We did, to no avail. No one knew the dog.

So we sat down to wait some more. The sun dropped lower. Car after car drove by, but no one stopped to say “Hey, that’s my dog!” I was starting to get a little worried. One never knows how long Animal Control will take. We gave the dog some water, using our emergency snack bowls and our emergency water jug. The sweet little pooch sipped at the water and then licked us. I can easily see how people end up owning the stray dogs they find…

Then we heard a voice:

“Hey! Did you find a dog?”

We swiveled in search of the voice. There! Behind us and up the hill. A guy was hanging over his fence. “Did you find a white shaggy dog?” he asked.

“Yes!” I shouted. “A Llasa Apso?”

“I guess,” he called back casually.

Huh? What’s with “I guess”? “Come around!” I shouted. Then we waited some more. But this time, we were clapping and high-fiving. We’d found the dog’s owner. Sort of. The guy didn’t now the type of dog, didn’t know it’s name, didn’t even know it’s gender. He just knew that his sister had gotten it the day before. Which explained the fact that it had no tags. He’d let the dog out into the back yard with his own dog, then went in the house only to return later to discover that the new dog had squeezed through the metal fence rails. That was his story, and it was good enough for me! I handed over the dog, who seemed quite fine with the transfer, then we drove off.

As we’d feared, we were far too late to ride bikes. It was dark by the time we got home.  The boys cried about that. I spent a lot of time telling them that they were heroes and that they had sacrificed for that dog, but that’s a tough sell with five-year-olds.  It wasn’t until Daddy promised dawn to dusk bike riding on Saturday (today) that their tears stopped. He hugged them, told them they were heroes, and made them feel important. Him, they believed.

I think it was that mixture of amusement and pride that still hung in his voice.