_{*Quick Summary: The author describes his time with a neighbor’s lost dog.*}

I made a new friend last weekend. Her name is Tessa, but I wouldn’t know that until almost 24 hours later. All I knew at first was a very friendly doggie had taken refuge on my front porch during a really bad storm around 4:30 PM Saturday. I was worn out from yard work earlier in the day, and a couple of injuries I was nursing. I was looking forward to taking a nap and trying to heal. In fact, I was missing a funeral that I felt was very important to a dear friend, because I was so exhausted and in so much pain.

Then along comes a lost dog. Of course, it had a collar, but no tags. It was clear she was scared of thunder. Every time it would boom, she would react. She was so sweet, so well groomed, so well behaved, it was obvious she belonged to someone. She missed them, and I was positive somebody was missing her.

My first thought was to get her out of the storm. That meant, at least for now, we were going to stay under the shelter of the front porch. My next door neighbors were about to leave, so I caught them and asked if they recognized her. They didn’t. I called the neighbors directly across the street, but got voicemail on both of their phones. I didn’t leave a message. I took a couple of photos and sent texts to the other neighbors I knew, most of whom are a couple of streets over, to ask if they recognized her. No one did. I posted her photos on the NextDoor app my neighborhood uses, and made a post to Facebook in case anyone local might recognize her. No luck.

At this point, the rain had subsided, so I thought we’d take to the neighborhood on foot. Just me and the mystery dog. My plan was simple, we’d walk and talk to whoever we saw, asking if they knew where she belonged. I planned to let her lead. Maybe she would take me straight to her home? My ankle was killing me, my head was hurting, my right eye had a blister on it, but my new buddy was homeless, and that just wasn’t going to do. I found a spare leash and we headed out.

This was a well trained doggie. She did better on a leash than my own dogs did. She pulled hard at the end of our cul-de-sac, just a few hundred feet from my house, going straight for the front door of the house there. I’ll admit, I thought, “Man, that was easy!”. I knew I’d hit the jackpot when the man answered the door with a huge smile on his face. He was clearly happy to see his lost dog! He opened the door, the dog started right into the house, and I almost let go of the leash when he said, “No girl, you can’t come in, you don’t live here.”. Dang! He went on to explain they had met her earlier and petted her. He was so friendly, she just wanted to go back and get some more love apparently. I asked him if he knew anything about her, and he said he didn’t. All he knew is that she came through the wooded area beside his house, the same area around the back of my neighbor directly across the street. Well, at least that was a start.

We walked down my street, but admittedly, my focus was on the next street over, the houses on the other side of that wooded area. We stopped a few people and talked without any luck. As we walked, the rain came again, then hail. We took shelter back at our house and paused the search, while I said the first of many prayers that I could somehow get this dog back to her people. Now that both of us were soaked, and knowing daylight was wasting, we took off again as soon as the rain slacked up a bit. We made it to the target street with zero luck. We talked to several people, but no one recognized this pretty baby. We walked back, soaking wet, sad, dejected, hurting, but not deterred. I was determined to find her home. Somehow.

A friend suggested we take her to the Emergency Vet one county over, to have them scan for a microchip. An excellent idea! Clearly this would provide the answer I was looking for. Being soaked, I went inside to change, and she began to get really vocal. She started clawing at the door and doing this silly bark/moan/howl thing. She obviously wanted to be inside. I hurried, grabbed some towels, dried her off a bit, and loaded her up for a quick trip. I prayed for a positive solution as I drove. We got there and she didn’t have a microchip. That hurt my feelings. It made me realize this might take a lot longer than I was hoping, but I returned to prayer on the way home.

We went towards home and after driving slowly through our neighborhood and a few others, talking to whoever would stop and listen, we came home and moved to our back porch. Our back yard is fenced, so she could exercise a bit, and we have a screened in porch where she could get out of the rain. Not knowing if she’d had her shots, I didn’t want to expose her to our dogs. In addition to our dogs, we also had my Mother-In-Law’s 13 year old Maltese, a small and fragile dog, that I just couldn’t risk getting injured. As badly as she wanted to go in the house, it just couldn’t happen. She kept looking at me like I was stupid. It was like she was saying, “Why can’t I go in your house?” and, “Why won’t you take me back to my home?”. I really wish it was that easy.

It was time to face the facts here. Nothing we might do tonight was going to be a long-term fix. The problems? I was exhausted and in pain. It was late. No one had any fresh ideas. I hadn’t eaten all day, and she probably hadn’t either. Time to regroup.

We took care of feeding both of us. That went great. She was hungry and polished her dish. The next step was simple – get some sleep and come up with a plan tomorrow. I’d done all I could do. Multiple Facebook posts were getting shared by many wonderful people, and my notifications were jumping, but no luck, just advice and well wishes. Tomorrow would be a new day, and after a good night’s sleep, the ideas would flow, right? The problem? This dog was clearly an inside dog. She didn’t just want to be inside, she needed to be. In our situation, that wasn’t happening. When I’d go inside, she claw at the door and make that silly bark/moan/howl thing again. She just did not want to be alone. Now what?

Well, the obvious answer is to sleep on the back porch with her, right? Right? Right! This wasn’t the first time I’d slept on the back porch with a dog. In fact, just like that time, I was starting to fall in love with the doggie involved. The next few hours didn’t involve much sleep. She was just plain sad. She missed her people. She did sleep some, but when she’d wake up, she’d want to walk in the back yard a bit. Not knowing if she’d had her shots (but suspecting she had) I still didn’t want to chance her passing anything to my dogs, so I’d wake up and let her out so I could pick up anything she might do in the yard. I could just picture her having worms or some other thing that would get all three dogs currently in our house sick. I truly felt like she was taken care of well enough we didn’t have to worry about that, but I didn’t know for sure. It made for a really long night, but I got to see enough of her personality that I really fell in love with her. What a great dog! I prayed several times during the night and early morning that we would find her home. I knew we might not find her home right away, but she wasn’t going to die. I looked her in her sweet eyes about 2:30 AM and told her just that. Somehow she was going to find home.

Sunday morning came with what felt like some promise. We were tired. I was still determined to find her home, but she might have been dumped. Her owners might not ever see the social media posts or find her if we took her to the shelter. I’d promised I was not going to let anyone kill her, and I meant it, but it was time to start thinking about contingency plans. With me toying with the idea of keeping her if we couldn’t find her home, my wife bonding with her was important to me. I prayed that she’d see the same qualities I had in the new dog, and shortly afterwards, my wife came out on the back porch with us. I could tell this doggie was working her magic. My wife was already under her spell, and in fact, she started working on a name for the dog. That’s when I knew it was done. We just had to get through the next week of keeping my Mother-In-Law’s dog, then we could get the new dog to a Vet, get it up-to-date on shots, and we’d be back up to three dogs again. Of course, this was the backup plan, but so far, it was the most important plan we could put together, as we knew we had to take her to local officials to run her through the lost dog system and give her rightful owners a good chance to find her first. What would happen if that all fell through?

Because my wife had spent so much time with our other dogs the night previous, she thought it might be good to swap roles for a bit and take the new dog out front while I let our dogs out the back to their usual spot to go potty. It would give her time to bond a bit, and me time to stretch and see our furry kids for more than a minute for the first time in a day. While she was in front of our house, and I was in the backyard, I saw our neighbor across the street look towards my wife and say, “Hey! That looks like my dog!”. Of course! The people I didn’t leave a message for. The people I didn’t text a photo to. The people that owned the land the neighbor in the cul-de-sac saw the dog coming out of. Yeah, those people! He introduced her as Tessa, and just like that, all was right in the world again. Apparently, she got out their back fence somehow while they were away at a function. Suddenly, everything made sense! The woods, the confused “Why won’t you take me home?” look she gave me, everything.

I certainly blame myself a bit for not putting it all together or following through with my calls/texts earlier, but seeing their daughter fall to her knees in the road when she saw her doggie made every doubt or bad feeling I had go away. My prayers had been answered! Tessa was back home!

Here are some photos of Tessa during our little journey: