Dexter (and YELLOW!)

WARNING: excess links below. Only click if you need to waste some time. They're really not all that grand.

For starters, let me just state that I have recently developed an obsession with the color yellow. (Okay, so maybe "obsession" is a little too strong a word, but a more accurate synonym escapes me. And yes, when I informed my mom of this last week, she, too, gave me a funny look. "Yellow?") Maybe it's because I'm feeling a bit sunshine-deprived (although we have had some fairly sunny days of late). But it's such a happy color! (Yellow Brick Road, anyone?) Yellow is summer and laughter and flowers and lemons! (Okay, so I don't really like lemons, but they're still bright and perky.) Stick a yellow bandana on a puppy and instantly it's like "Hey! I'm a friendly guy. Come give me kisses!"(Which is probably why my dog does not wear yellow.)

Yeah, yellow is traditionally the color of cowards, but I think that's totally unfair. To me, it's more like happiness.

*cough*

Okay, I'm done.

My real reason for coming here was to relate the adventure I had yesterday. (I know, I was supposed to post yesterday. Things happened and I eventually didn't have the time. I'm sorry. But I'm here now.)

It was probably about 2 or a little later when Hershey started going berserk about something outside. Like high-pitched whining, yapping, and eventually all-out barking. Sasha didn't know what to think and was pacing back and forth whimpering.

I finally noticed and went to see what was going on. There was a dog pacing in the road in front of our house. Mom and Wes had just pulled in and were calling the dog over to them. I hurried outside (barefoot, of course).

The dog was a bit timid and trotted back and forth around Mom, Wes, and the car. I coaxed him over to me and got ahold of his collar.

He didn't have any tags or any other form of identification. Just a collar. (Green camo, if you're wondering.) He seemed friendly enough, so I started petting him. He was a pit bull, about the same height as Hershey, white except for patches on his face and ears and a couple spots on his tail.

Wes said he'd never seen the dog before, and the rest of us agreed. Living so close to the "park", we see a lot of dogs walk by. So we started wondering what to do.

Long story short, we got an extra leash, I took Mom's shoes and got my coat, and Wes and I headed off to ask some people if they'd ever seen the dog.

We didn't knock on many doors. Most people weren't very pleasant and told us to just take the dog to the shelter and be done with it. Fine. If your dog gets out, I'll do that.

We found one guy who was nice enough. He thought the dog looked familiar but said it wasn't from his street. ("They have a black dog. They have a beagle. They don't have any dogs. He has a cat....") He eventually shrugged and said his neighbor (who has a golden retriever) knew who had what dogs and could help us, but he wasn't home. So we gave him Mom's number and our address and headed down the street to a house he had indicated. (The lady there didn't want to talk. I think she was mad about me making her dog bark. She's the kind of person who wouldn't buy coupons.)

We were heading home when the friendly guy's neighbor pulled in, so we went to talk to him. He said he'd seen the dog running loose a while ago and that a boy had come and got it, and he pointed in the direction he thought he'd seen them go. It was a general location, but Wes and I weren't going to lead a strange dog down all of it. (Oh. At one point a couple drove by. We'd been watching for someone driving along looking for their dog, and as these people were smiling and staring at us we did the same to them. They drove on by without a word. I felt like an idiot.)

So we started back for home, numb and out of ideas. Wes went inside to talk to Mom and I sat outside with the dog, who was now licking my face, all shyness gone.

Then I heard shouting. It sounded like the same name over and over, along with the occasional whistle. It was coming from the direction opposite of which we'd been told the dog probably belonged, but I called Mom outside. She'd been on the phone with the Humane Society asking if any missing dogs had been reported.

Mom agreed we should go looking for whoever was shouting, so we hopped in the car, me in the back with the dog.

They were standing at the end of a dead end road just past the Inconvenience Store shouting and whistling: an older woman and three kids. Mom asked if they were looking for a dog. They saw him in the backseat and nodded, looking unhappy. (They'd been shouting "Dexter", not "Samson" as I'd guessed.) The woman undid the leash and they all headed for the house, she giving me a curt "thank you" over her shoulder. We headed home, me feeling satisfied. Good deed for the week: check. (Haha.) Now I'm even more determined to teach our dogs to come when called and to stay nearby at all times. Somehow....