Dog Days

My 4.5-mile run in the hazy sunny heat this morning turned into my second run interrupted by returning a dog to its owner. I had seen the dog following (off-leash) one of my neighbors on the towpath, and coming back, the dog was whipping itself into a frenzy, alone, in the grasses along the river. I was able to corral it with the help of some other runners, and proceeded to walk back toward home, hunched over, holding his collar.

This neighbor has a history of not paying close attention to the dog, and blowing off any transgressions as no biggie. So even before I saw the dog in the grasses, I had a gut feeling it was hers.

Over the course of 15 or 20 minutes and with the interventions and assistance of a dozen or so other people, I got the dog back up onto the towpath, resting in the shade, and borrowed a phone to leave a message on Neighbor's voicemail. The phone passerby helped me try to give the dog some water, and was about to make a leash out of my shirt when Neighbor wandered up. She snapped a leash on the dog and said "thanks," and that was that. I'm sure she has no idea how much trouble we all went through. Even if she had witnessed the whole thing, I'm sure to her it was still "no biggie."

Oh well. I hope she was clued in enough to get that dog some water. Poor guy was way overheated.