Lucy

Coming home from Lily and Ben's last night, Robin and I were driving up Chambers to our little home on the hill. Just as we were about to cross 13th, a beagle ran across Chambers, came close to being hit, and zipped towards 12th. I began to whimper when Robin said, "do you want to go get it?"

I bolted out of the car and did my "hey dog I don't know but you can trust me 'cuz I'm really nice and wanna take care of you" routine. Crouching softly on the grass, I lightly padded the ground in front of me and uttered several "come" commands to the beagle. She would come within inches and then dart off again, wanting me to play with her. The game persisted for about five minutes until she lowered her head, began to wag her little tail and inch towards me. I grabbed hold of her collar and oddly enough, she didn't try to escape. Rather, she stood there in awkward silence, as if she just started to realize the error of her ways.

I sifted through the six tags on her collar to find the AVID tag (electronic chip tag) and the phone numbers for her owners. By this time, Robin had parked the car and was trying all the numbers Lucy had to give. AVID said to call Greenhill, which was closed. The two numbers for Lucy's mommy were going to voicemail. We stood there for a few minutes, reviewed our options and the only way we saw the situation was to take Lucy home with us.

Lucy was the sweetest dog. Her eyes were droopy and soft and I could tell by her distended nipples that she had not one or two but several litters of pups. We would later discover that she was a breeding dog who hadn't been cared for very much in her younger years. When I held her, she leaned into me and stayed absolutely still, knowing that I wasn't going to harm her. Our cat, on the other hand...

For those of you who know our kitty, you know she is the sweet yet opinionated type (kind of like two gay boys you know?). We knew she wouldn't like the unwelcomed stranger stinking up her house, but we had little alternative. As we don't have a fenced backyard, we couldn't plop Lucy out there. Our solution was to move Luna's litter box from downstairs to the bathroom and put Lucy downstairs with some water and blankets. Meanwhile, Luna would approach the downstairs door and hiss, informing our new friend that she could go to hell any time she liked. Once Lucy would bump the door or issue a low bark, Luna would skamper up the stairs and perch in our doorway, staring intently at the entrance to downstairs. Robin tried to console her, only to have Luna look at him with utter annoyance and disapproval. I'm fairly sure Luna would have been telling us to go to hell too if she could talk.

We watched some t.v. and it was becoming time to go to bed. We brought Luna into the room with us because we felt so bad for her. Just as we layed down, Lucy began to bark. She didn't bark loudly or constantly, but intermittant, low barks to let us know she'd rather be upstairs thank you very much. The barking continued for three or so minutes when we realized something had to be done. I took Lucy out of the basement, cleared the office floor and put her blankets down with the water. Placing her in the office would shut her up, I so cleverly thought.

When the barking didn't stop again, I went into the office, rolled out the spare bed and layed down with Lucy, hoping that with some company she woud be more secure and would fall asleep too. I was right. We were just dozing off as Robin entered the room with fantastic news. Lucy's mommy called! Turns out she was out of town and Lucy had escaped from the sitters house (ouch).

At about 11:30, Lucy's mommy arrived and was so thankful we took care of her baby. This is the point when I found out about Lucy being a breeding dog and also discovered that her mommy was really new; only one week old. A few pleasant words later, Robin and I went back into the house and fell fast asleep. I usually sleep well, but after all that, I was out like a drunk on Tuesday. Oh, and rescuing a dog made me feel good ;)