So we have another dog living with us for the time being. Last weekend, our neighbor knocked on our door thinking our dog had gotten loose. She had with her a sweet young lab/pit bull mix. He looked like one of our neighbor's dogs so we sent her to check with him, giving her one of our dog's leashes to use. She brought the leash back so we figured she found his home.
Nope.
When she couldn't find his home, she decided to let him go hoping he'd find his way back to his home.
Nope again.
As I walked our dog Monday morning, guess who was running through yards making all of the neighborhood dogs incensed. Yep....our buddy from the weekend. I brought him home and put him in a spare crate we had and figured I'd look for his owner when I got home from work. I created flyers and we walked the neighborhood putting them in everyone's mailboxes, but only got one response. Unfortunately, it wasn't "Buddy's" owner. I also placed an ad on Petfinder.com and called the county humane society and dog control. No luck.
Flash forward to Tuesday night. Turtle's away for the evening at school. I come home and open the door to Buddy's crate. He struggles to get his hind end underneath him but finally does and walks stiffly outside to do his business. I keep an eye on him and the more he walks, the looser he seems. I chalk it up to having spent the day on the hard plastic crate floor and put a dog bed in his crate for the night. I wake up Wednesday morning and he can't even get up. He tries, but actually can't.
Oh no. Not good. Crap! I'm home by myself and don't have any more personal days. Shit!
I call Turtle and tell him the situation and ask him to leave work early to take Buddy to the vet. He does and, as it turns out, the poor dog has both Lyme disease AND Ehrlichiosis (the same bug that causes Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever in humans). Fortunately, both are treatable with the same antibiotic and some anti-inflamitories.
We also learned the value of microchipping your pets. Turns out "Buddy" has one and is really "Phoenix". The bad news is that his current owner never registered with the database company. The number in the database belongs to his previous owner who sold him last year and moved to England. His father (whose number is the one in the registry) offered to contact him to find out who he sold Phoenix to.
And that's where we stand today. One hundred plus dollars in the hole for a dog that isn't even ours and whose owner seems to be elusive. It'll be interesting how this whole situation pans out.
'Til next time....
