We have a rule. No matter how busy we are, we always stop if we see a dog roaming the streets. If one of our dogs ever got out, we would want someone to do the same for us — catch our dog, keep them warm and safe, and do everything in their power to reunite us. Luckily, most of the time we see a dog loose, their owner is nearby watching their every move. But every now and then, that isn’t the case. Back in July, Marc came home holding a very sweet, fat Chihuahua, and yesterday he came to the door with an old, grumpy Chow Chow. The adventures never cease!
Of course, things like this never happen at a convenient time. We were scheduled to leave right then for Marc’s office Christmas party. But instead, when Jenny opened the door, Marc was standing there with a bloody hand and a leash around this huge Chow! (PS. Jenny does not handle the sight of blood very well.) She didn’t faint, but managed to put Indy, Karma, and Schmav in the bedroom, and then went back and took the Chow from Marc so he could tend to his hand.
Jenny put Boo-Boo (as we now know he is called) in the laundry room and was able to get the slip lead off his head with no issues. Food and water were placed on the floor and we just hoped he could figure out the doggy door if he needed to go out. In the meantime, Marc cleaned up his hand, bandaged it up, and we were out the door after placing a vague ad on Craigslist. Just a side note, if you find a dog, always make your ad vague — people have been known to claim a lost pet as theirs and then turn around and sell it for a profit — so gross!
On the way to the Christmas party, Jenny got the explanation on the hand. Marc saw the dog walking up our street and couldn’t find an owner anywhere in sight, so he grabbed the slip lead out of the back seat and went to get the dog. He looped the lead over his head and then tried to lead him to the house, but the lead slipped off. With all that hair, the collar couldn’t close in tight enough around his head to be effective. After three attempts, Marc had to slide his hand down the lead to make it tight. Boo-Boo growled and bared his teeth, clearly warning Marc that he felt threatened. Marc ignored the warning and Boo-Boo took a bite…to be clear — this was not the dog’s fault! He was not mean, he just felt threatened by Marc, warned him, and then took action when Marc ignored the warning. So that’s the story. Poor Marc.
Marc called himself in some antibiotics to the Walgreens conveniently located next to the Cheesecake Factory on 16th Street mall where we were having dinner! So meds in his system, we had a great time at the dinner. There were some fun games like a one-handed wrapping contest and a guess how many M&Ms are in the jar game. And thanks to Jenny’s memory of high school geometry, we won the M&Ms! After dinner we took horse-drawn carriages to the theatre where we saw The Christmas Carol! It was SO good! If you are in Denver this season, you have to check it out!
When we got home, we checked on Boo-Boo and discovered he was outside and had no intentions of coming back inside. It was COLD outside, but he was content, all curled up under one of our trees — so different from our Vizslas!
In the morning, we were able to coax Boo-Boo in, but still couldn’t get him to eat. We keep some canned dog food around to stuff inside Kongs and freeze, so we thought we’d see if Boo-Boo would eat that, and he did! Hooray! Now on to figure out what to do with him. We knew we couldn’t get him to a shelter because with his horrible arthritis in his back legs, there was no way he could jump in our car. Obviously, we weren’t going to be able to lift him into the car either — he still wasn’t even letting us pet him without growling us away. What to do?
First we contacted the local breed club, the Rocky Mountain Chow Chow club. They were very happy we contacted them and sent our email out to all their members. The closest rescue contact we could find was in West Texas. She sent us the names of two women who might be rescue contacts here in Colorado, but they said they were no longer able to do rescue. Sad! Then we went to the little town center in our neighborhood and asked the grooming shop and grocery store if anyone had mentioned losing their dog. No luck. Next stop, flyers! We printed out a bunch and grabbed our staple gun. Unfortunately, we were out of staples, so we headed to Home Depot — AND THEN WE GOT AN EMAIL 🙂 Jenny had received about 10 emails so far about lost dogs (thank you Craigslist!), but not until this one had anyone mentioned a Chow. We called them up, gave them a quick quiz, and without a shadow of a doubt, we knew this was their Boo-Boo! Turns out he had only traveled ONE block! Marc joked that for the price his hand paid, he kinda wished it was a more dramatic story 🙂
We headed home, called his owners, and a few minutes later, the whole family was at our door. The “Dad” came in and greeted Boo-Boo with a big head scratch (no growling!) Boo-Boo stood up and carefully plodded his way to our front door — it was like no big deal — ok, Dad’s here, gotta go! They were so thankful he was ok, and explained how heartbroken they were that they couldn’t find their 15 YEAR OLD (*so* old for a Chow Chow by the way!) arthritic boy. Marc kept his hand carefully concealed behind his back the whole time so they wouldn’t feel bad, and we said a cheerful goodbye to our newly discovered neighbors!
We emailed the Chow Chow club to let them know we reunited the dog with his family. This evening we received a very nice email from their President thanking us for helping out Boo-Boo! Totally unnecessary, but very classy 🙂 Needless to say, after a happy ending, we are definitely in the holiday spirit around here! Nothing like a little Christmas miracle 🙂
Below are some photos of Marc’s Christmas party festivities — now off to do some Christmas shopping!
