We’ve done it again … come home with another stray dog, one which to date defies returning to whoever lost him. He isn’t from our neighborhood – since no one here recognizes him. We found him romping happily last Sunday afternoon in the empty field next to St. Helena’s Catholic Church, and he followed us home. There are at least three neighborhoods besides ours that he could possibly have come from, four if he galloped across Nacogdoches Road sometime in the wee hours last weekend. We’re going to go around tomorrow and paper them with fliers, but I am not holding my breath on being called by his owner any time soon.

It is possible he came from a good distance. In the past, we have found dogs and returned them to owners who lived a good few miles from our house. Big dogs can go a long way – especially if frightened out of their tiny canine minds by a thunderstorm, or 4th of July fireworks. Like those previous rescues, this one is a big dog, not a fifteen-pound pocket-puppy like Connor the Malti-Poo who could not possibly have come very far from where we found him five or six months ago. We were certain that Conner had strayed, and that someone was frantically searching for him, but no. Connor was dumped, and we fear it is the same with Muttley, as we have called him, purely for the convenience of calling him something. Muttley is a German shepherd and hound cross, about a year old, with a collar and no tags – he might have come from a neighborhood a fair distance away, but I registered him with fido-finder and find-toto-dot-com, without result. So we’re pretty certain that he was dumped also … which is a pity in a good many ways.

First – because someone house-trained him, and taught him to sit, stay, lie down, and shake hands – which is a heck of a lot of work to do with a young dog. He was very clean when we found him, he likes the cats, is agreeably subservient to the senior dogs, behaves himself indoors, and otherwise gives evitence of being a dog that someone took care with. The last couple of dumped dogs that we found were anything but – they were rowdy, undisciplined, destructive, and we were happy to find one lot some new owners (with a large and dog-proof back yard) and turn the other two over to the county Animal Shelter, which does all that they can with healthy and well-tempered animals.

The one thing that keeps us from doing the same with Muttley, is that he seems to have an old but healed injury to one of his fore-legs, or rather to his shoulder – scapula bone. He limps a little bit – and we’re afraid that if we do turn him over to the shelter, he will be immediatly euthanized because of it. So – if anyone knows of anyone in San Antonio who would like to adopt a nice, well-trained and affectionate larger dog … let us know. Muttley will be available.