The Chronicles of Cookie 1

Yesterday, while visiting the in-laws, we saw a lost little corgi/chihuahua/terrier mix on the street. Our rule for stray dogs is that we will help the animal as long as it does not show any aggresive tendencies or that it does not run away. The dog came to us when Kim called to it and was quite friendly towards us. The dog did have tags - his name is Cookie, it had a phone number, and an address which was approximately 2 miles away.

Our first guess to reuniting the dog with his owner was to call the phone number on the tag. The number was disconnected. Okay...our next step was that since the number was invalid, the owner probably moved and this little guy's family was probably very close by. None of the neighbors we asked recognized him. Since it was starting to get dark, we went home to print out some "Lost Dog" flyers and came back to post them around the neighborhood.

Last night, Cookie made friends with all of the dogs in the house. Ziggy, Brownie, and Miko all welcomed the guy, and Cookie seemed quite happy to make new friends. The only dog who didn't seem to enjoy the company was Scruffy. Cookie kept jumping on him and tackling poor Scruffy, and Scruff didn't like it one bit. As most of you know, Scruffy is...well...handicapped physically and mentally. Anytime a handicapped person (or animal) gets picked on is just plain sad.

Sunday around noontime, I was doing some yardwork, and Cookie explored the yard for a bit and then sat by me watching me trying to dig a hole (why I am digging a hole is a story for another time). The soil in our yard is about 6" of soft dirt then hard clay underneath. Cookie watched me struggle to dig through hard clay. I could imagine him laughing to himself since it felt as though I was trying to dig through concrete.

By early afternoon, no one had responded to the "Lost Dog" flyer, so we decided to try taking the dog to the address on his tag. Remember, the address is about 2 miles away, which is quite a distance for a dog to wander, especially in the city. Nonetheless we decided we had nothing to lose and as it turns out, the owner who lived there did lose his dog. As we were leaving, he was very appreciative and said "Hey, you guys are such nice people". This was coming from a guy who looked like a gangster, so it was quite a compliment to me.

So ends the first and only installment of the "Chronicles of Cookie". Despite Cookie only being with us for one day, he left quite an impresion on us since he's such a charismatic little guy. Not only did we have a hand in reuniting a lost dog with his family, we received a genuine and heartfelt compliment from a guy that normally I would not expect to receive one from. Those two things left me feeling like this was a pretty good day.