Beware of Cat (9 page)

Not Quite Lost and Found

One warm summer day, a large, unfamiliar dog suddenly appeared at my side. I was startled, but he didn’t act aggressive or nervous. He simply walked up at an angle from the street and fell into stride beside me. He wore a collar and tags, but I had two fists full of mail, so I continued on my way, intending to look at his
ID
when my hands were free.

When I stopped to put mail in a slot, he paused and waited beside me. If I took more than a few seconds, he quietly sat down and surveyed the neighborhood around us. He seemed to pay no particular attention to anything, either by sniffing or “marking.” He was simply out for a walk, and apparently he had decided to share it with me for a while.

In a way it was flattering, the way he waited for me. With the neighborhood under his constant surveillance, I had my own canine bodyguard. He stood tall and slender, with the gray and white markings of a husky. There was an athletic elegance in his movement, a confidence in his light-footed stride, leaving no doubt that he was quite capable of taking care of himself.

With my hands finally free, I sat on the front steps of a corner house and whistled him closer. He came to me without a moment’s hesitation. His tags told me that his name was Wolf, and he lived four or five blocks off my route.

Over the years I’ve brought many dogs home. Most of them lived on my route and knew me, so they were willing to jump into my jeep for a ride home. One black lab could open the gate to his yard if it wasn’t secured with a pin through the latch. When I brought him home, he sat high atop the trays of mail, holding his thick Labrador bulk as steady as possible to avoid falling from his perch. He seemed to study our route, his big black head swiveling to inspect every object we passed. I imagined him thinking, “Well, duh! So
this
is where I turned wrong and got lost!”

I sat on the front steps of the house petting Wolf. With his quiet disposition I got the distinct impression that he wasn’t lost at all. He knew exactly where his house was, and he was visiting with me of his own volition. I had to decide if I should try to get him in my jeep for a ride home. The Postal Service wasn’t paying me to rescue lost dogs, especially if it required leaving my route to do so.

On the other hand, the neighborhood wouldn’t tolerate a dog running loose for too long. Animal Control would be notified, and I didn’t want Wolf to have to endure that humiliation.

Just then the front door behind me opened and the lady
of the house emerged. “I see you have some company today,” she said.

I laughed. Jingling the dog tags, I said, “His name is Wolf. I guess he decided to join me for a walk. I’m trying to decide if I dare drive him home.”

“Where does he live?”

I had talked to Jeanie many times, so I knew she had lost her own dog about a year earlier to old age and cancer. She was a kind person, with an abiding love of animals. An adult daughter had just moved back in with her.

“He lives just a few blocks away,” I said. “Maybe half a mile at the most.”

Wolf suddenly stood up and climbed the steps. He gently nuzzled Jeanie, rubbing against her legs like a cat. She scratched his ears while looking at his tag. “There’s a phone number here. If you want, I’ll call the owners to come over and get him. He can wait inside with me.”

Thanking her for her generosity, I got up to leave. She opened the door, and Wolf sauntered in like he owned the place. I walked away knowing that he would be safe and provided for.

The next day, Jeanie met me at the door. “They sent a couple of their kids over to get him,” she informed me. “Did you know there are five children in that household? I guess they leave the gate open all the time, especially when they’re playing outside in the summer.”

She glanced up the block before returning her attention to me. “I tell you what, though. That Wolf is the nicest dog. Made no fuss at all while he was here.” She lowered her voice, adding, “I think he kind of liked the peace and quiet after those rambunctious children.” I left her standing on the stoop. There had been a hint of sadness in her voice, which I chalked up to the memory of her old dog.

A few days after my unscheduled meeting with Wolf, I encountered another surprise. At Jeanie’s house, sitting in the sunshine on the front steps, was the big gray and white husky. He bowed his head to me, and gave one friendly wag of his tail. I sat down next to him and patted his head.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. He seemed very content, like he enjoyed the sun on his face and the warmth reflecting off the concrete steps. I reached behind me and rapped on the door.

Now it was my turn to say, “Looks like you’ve got company, Jeanie.” A wonderful smile spread across her face when she saw Wolf. His tail wagged several times at the sight of her.

Ultimately, Wolf moved in full time. His family decided it was easier to visit him at Jeanie’s rather than drag him home every couple of days. So, in the end, while I guess it wouldn’t be accurate to say that Wolf had ever been truly lost, it certainly could be said that someone had found him.

GUS WAS AN OLD
schnauzer mixed-breed who belonged to Karl, a retired letter carrier who lived on my route. Karl had been retired for more years than I had worked for the post office. Every now and then he came outside to discuss the latest changes in the job. One day while Karl and I stood at his door talking, Gus shot outside and hurled himself down the steps. He tore a direct line across the front yard into the street. I looked up at Karl, thinking maybe he should call out to him, but he just stood there, calmly watching his dog beat a straight-line path away from us. With no fences to impede his progress, Gus ran full speed through yards and alleys, never breaking course or his short-legged stride, until he was finally lost from sight.

“Geez, Karl, I’m really sorry,” I said, still stunned by the emphatic way in which Gus had made his escape.

“Well, don’t worry about it,” Karl replied, resignation lending a sigh to his voice. “He runs away whenever he can. He’ll go all the way to the freeway where that tall fence stops him. Then he’ll run back and forth looking for a way through. He’ll tire out soon enough. I’ll just drive over there in a few minutes and pick him up.”

I tried to make light of it. “At least he’s getting some exercise.”

Karl smiled. “You know, that dog hates me. He belonged to my wife, and I promised I’d take care of him after she was gone. But he acts like he’s in a prisoner of war camp. Maybe he blames me for her death, I don’t know. He used to sit in my wife’s lap when we watched TV, but now he lies in the corner watching me, like he’s plotting his next opportunity to escape.”

It was like Steve McQueen in
The Great Escape
, riding his motorcycle along the barbwire fence looking for an escape route from the Nazi prison camp. And in the same way that Steve McQueen was always captured and returned to prison, Gus was always picked up at the freeway fence and brought home.

TWO SMALL, WHITE,
poodle-looking dogs came yapping along the sidewalk like a miniature wolf pack on a hot scent. One stopped to sniff while the other one shot out ahead, then they traded places, attacking and investigating every little object in their path.

I was surprised when they eagerly jumped into my jeep without any coaxing. They wore collars and tags, but because of their energetic and skittish antics, I wanted to have them safely corralled before trying to learn where they lived. Fortunately, their address was only three or four houses off my route.

By the time I pulled up in front of their house, both dogs were sitting in my lap. I guess they were accustomed to riding in vehicles. When I looked at their house, sure enough, I spotted the side gate standing ajar. Then it took some tricky maneuvers to extricate myself from the jeep without letting the dogs out to run away again.

I don’t know what I was expecting when I rang the doorbell, but I got a real shock when the owner filled up the doorway. He was enormous, with a belly hanging out over the elastic waistband of his sweat pants. A dingy grayish-white T-shirt couldn’t quite hold him all in.

The thought of this huge man living with the two little high-strung poodles suddenly struck me as comical. To avoid laughing, I turned to point at the jeep and asked, “Are those your dogs?”

They were standing on my seat looking out the window at us, happily yapping and bouncing.

“Why, those little devils,” the man said, coming through the door.

For a moment, then, I had a real bad feeling. He glanced at the open gate as his long strides propelled him swiftly toward the jeep. I had to jog to stay ahead of him. Would he hurt the dogs for trying to run away?

I slid the door open with the thought that if they took off again, I would let them go. Before I could react, however, the two little balls of fur catapulted from the seat into the man’s outstretched arms. They licked his wide chin as he snuggled his face into their fur. “You little rascals,” he bellowed. “What am I going to do with you? Don’t you know you could’ve gotten hurt? Or stolen?”

He turned on his heel and carried them up to the house, mumbling bits of baby talk and ignoring me. But that was okay. The dogs were safely home again, my fears were unwarranted, and I could go on with my day.

SATURDAY MORNINGS CAN
be pretty quiet in a residential neighborhood. With no businesses nearby attracting traffic, without the roar of school buses on the weekend, and with parents and their children sleeping in, I often spend the first hour or so on my route walking through a virtual ghost town. Shades are pulled, and newspapers still lie at the front door steps. It’s a good time for me to inspect unique varieties of shrubs and perennials or discover new ideas for decks and gardens. I pass peacefully across the deserted lawns, lost in my own thoughts and daydreams.

A few years ago I was startled out of one of these Saturday morning reveries by the sudden appearance of a young woman at her front door. Still in her robe, she clutched an oversized mug of coffee in both hands. I had talked to her and her husband many times, and we had become good friends. Finding them up and about on a Saturday morning was a rarity.