On November 21, my dad and I were taking a walk around our neighborhood. It was early morning, before I had to get ready for work. We were about five minutes into the walk, on a quiet street, when my dad pointed out a tiny dog a little ways ahead. There was no owner.
As we approached, a nearby car stopped and the driver got out. I thought it must be the owner, pausing to catch his dog. But as we got closer, the passenger leaned out of the car and explained that they were just passing and stopped to help. They didn’t know who owned the dog either.
The little dog was in a playful mood. My dad and I started after the dog, determined to catch her, so she wouldn’t get hit by a car. Every time we got near, though, she ran off again. Eventually, we reached a turn off. One way continued on the quiet street, while the other led to a busy one. The dog ran toward the busy one. We continued on our walk on the quiet street, worried that our presence would accidentally cause the dog to run into traffic.
I happen to live on the busy street, so I called my mom and told her about the dog. She agreed to go out into the driveway and see if she could spot the dog. Ten minutes later, we came back out onto our street. We could see the dog still running on the opposite side of the road. Several more cars stopped as the drivers tried to catch the dog, as well.
The dog ran into a nearby parking lot and three people followed: my mom and two strangers, a man and a woman. Working together, they kept the dog from running off, eventually tiring her out. The man scooped up the exhausted dog, while the woman took her picture and posted it on the neighborhood website, hoping the owner would see it.
Since our house was right across the street from where they stood, my mom said we would take the dog and drop her off at the animal shelter later. The man handed my mom the dog, who was about the same size as my cats, and wore a collar with no tags.
The dog stayed in my house for about two and a half hours. We put her in my brother’s room with food and water and closed the door. My cats were not happy with this intruder. It turned out that the animal shelter wasn’t open that day, so my mom called animal control to pick the dog up. The two animal control officers were really nice. They thanked us for saving the dog and said that they would take her to the animal shelter.
It was quite a morning. I’m just happy we were in the right place at the right time to save her. I hope she found her owners.