What are you looking for?

Let me tell you, chances are you will find something different.

I was just out on a little jaunt with my Person leashed up behind me and we were both looking for foxes. Or maybe baby racoons up in the tree branches. Or an eagle.

But instead we found a Lost Dog.

We were tromping through our favorite oak savanna, and we passed a group of leaf watchers. There was a dog with them. But when we passed them the dog followed us. "Is this your dog?" my Person bellowed. "No," they bellowed back.

My Person looked at the dog and said, "I hope you are not a Lost Dog."

The dog followed us a bit and then it ran ahead. "Aha!" my Person said. She thought the Lost Dog's Person was up ahead and the Lost Dog was not lost after all. But there was no Person up ahead. We stopped and the Lost Dog stopped too. Then it ran toward us and kept going back where we had first met it.

"Aha!" my Person said again, thinking the Lost Dog's Person was really behind us, not ahead of us. So we turned and followed the Lost Dog. But it turned too and ran back to us and then a little ahead. It really was a Lost Dog. So my Person called it, trying all sorts of names like "pup" and "dog" and "hey you." Finally she clapped her hands and yelled "Come!" and the Lost Dog ran right up and sat down and waited for one of my treats.

It was an old dog, brown and short and grizzled and pleasant. It had a collar but it didn't have any tags that said what its name was or its Person's phone number was or anything useful. (Now I remember why I have to wear those jangly things, since I was once a Lost Dog.) It also did not have a leash. And I needed to use mine to keep the number of Lost Dogs in this story to one.

Now my leash attaches to my sporty harness and my collar is mainly a holder for my tags. Every now and again my Person does something handy and on this occasion she fashioned a short little leash by slipping my collar though the Lost Dog's collar.

Off we went, my Person bent sideways to hang onto the short leash of the Lost Dog and I sped along on her other side stopping to sniff and snort and entertain myself. "Stop that," My Person growled.

We traveled along like this until we got to the main road and my Person found another Person to help us. She had a cell phone, being a better prepared sort of Person than my Person. And she called Animal Control, which does not help lost animals on Sunday nights. They suggested letting the Lost Dog go loose again!!

So the helpful and prepared Person called her husband and he came to meet us and he brought a real leash. I got my collar back and the Lost Dog trailed home after them to spend the night in a more comfortable place than an oak savanna. He is there now with a dish of water and a bowl of food and a blanket to sleep on. And in the morning those nice people will find that Lost Dog's real home and he won't be Lost anymore.

And my Person and I will go back to looking for foxes and not adventures.