Her Milkshake Brings All the Boys to the Yard

Daisy and I were playing ball out in the back yard last Sunday morning. I had her tied to the clothesline. We were alternating between the soccer ball and the tennis ball (the soccer ball is tougher for her to get her mouth around, but Daisy finds the way it bounces around simply delightful. And tennis balls are magically delicious...). Just then, I heard a rustling in the leaves off in the distance, and somebody yelling repeatedly. Suddenly a chocolate lab comes running around our neighbor's yard from the side and starts to head right for us.

He comes up to the fence and stops short. He's leaning against the fence, looking for a way to get over into our yard. Seeing he's fairly friendly and doesn't look too aggressive, I lean over the fence and grab him by the collar. I yell out "OVER HERE!" to whoever it is yelling off in the distance.

He sees his owner coming around the corner, then leans back and slips out of his collar. He takes off in the other direction toward the road. Dammit.

The owner finally makes it over to where Daisy and I are standing. I hand him the empty collar. Our fugitive's name is "Mocha". He had been left in the car for the last two hours while owner-guy was at the Quaker meetinghouse. Mocha saw his chance to get away as soon as the car door was opened and he ran for it (apparently, Mocha isn't big on the whole "silent meditation" thing).

Daisy is all kinds of crazy by this point. NEW PEOPLE! OTHER DOGS! SNIFF SNIFF SNIFF! JUMP JUMP JUMP!

I calm her down enough to get the leash back on her and we head out looking for Mocha, with Daisy as the bait. We live on a fairly busy road, so in the back of my mind, I'm hoping Mocha isn't roadkill by the time we find him.

After a few minutes walking up and down the street yelling for him, we see that he has somehow circled back around and is in our back yard again. We head back over to our house, and he meets us in the driveway.

I hang on to Daisy's leash with one hand, then drop down and give him a bear hug and hold on to him tightly. Mocha's owner makes it over and gets the collar and leash back over Mocha's head. But he wouldn't have been going too far at that point. He wasn't going anywhere until he gave Daisy the complete sniffing.

Daisy was exhausted after all that excitement. We headed back inside for a nap. I was glad that she made a new friend, but I don't think Mocha's owner is going to be bringing him to services again anytime soon. Maybe the Lutherans have singles night for dogs...