Our visitor, Obi-Wan the dog

Shane and Carter were out for a walk last night as I was getting dinner ready. A cute little dog followed them around and kept running out into the road. Shane, who I know secretly would love a dog even though he knows we don't have room for one here, brought him home because he was worried he would get hit by a car. Obi-Wan was his name, according to his collar. We figured it would be a simple process to return the dog to his owner since he had tags. However, the 1-800 number on the tags led us not to his owner, but to a pet recovery service. Shane called them, but the number for the owner on file apparently was disconnected. The service was not allowed to give us the name or address of the owner. This all went down at approximately 5:30 pm. Animal Control closed at 5:00 and would not be open until 11:00 the following day! We figured there was nothing we could do but keep him overnight. In the meantime, we made up a few signs and posted them around our neighborhood, hoping his owner was out looking for him. I also got online and posted his info on the pet recovery site I got from the animal control website.

Carter and Shane were in doggy heaven. I was too, for about the first 5 minutes. No, wait, it wasn't quite that long. To make what felt like a very long evening into a shorter version of the story, here is what happened: We put him out on the patio. He got cold around 9:00 and started whining something fierce, and even started yipping a little. We decided the neighbors might be a little less than happy if this went on all night and allowed him inside. I should mention we had gotten some dog food from Joe and Claudia for him and put out water with it, so he wasn't hungry. He was obviously an inside dog, and it happened to be a really cold winter night for Phoenicians! We borrowed J & C's dog bed and put it in the kitchen. Luckily, our kitchen is baby-gated. Well, Obi-Wan was sweet for about a minute. Let's just say after he had tried jumping the gate, nearly successful, and then relieved himself on my kitchen floor (right next to my foot), I was done. This was around 11:00 pm. I called the recovery service back and I gave them a talking to. It is not important how, but we somehow were able to find out where Obi-Wan lived and to return him to his home (just around the corner). We were all glad to have our space back!

Moral of the story: We* are not ready for a dog yet.

*"We" excludes CJ. He felt quite ready for a puppy. He was sorely disappointed to run to the patio door first thing in the morning making woofing sounds and to not have a puppy on the other side of the glass.