Is This Your Dog?

Dear Two-Legged Living in Roxbury, Connecticut, or Thereabouts, and Missing Your Dog:

If the dog in the above picture is your gentle and loving Vizsla, you are no doubt wondering why he is on my couch snoring the evening away after an afternoon of exploring the countryside and not on yours.

He is here because my daughter and I came across him this afternoon loose on South Street in Roxbury, where he was flirting with an elderly, voiceless collie on the other side of one of those electronic gates bearing a Warning We Have a Dog (So There) signs meant to keep me and the Avon Lady away. The collie wasn't much interested in this debonair bachelor, but he persisted. We stopped the car and called to him, and he climbed right into the car like he was waiting for the chauffeur to finally show up. I pulled into the collie's driveway and called for a human, but none came.

There were utility trucks everywhere in this ridiculously gated, camera-laden Beware of Dog section of town, and the situation was dodgy for an unassuming dog the color of fallen leaves to be loose in the middle of the road. So we took him in and off we went to the town hall, where the town clerk and his son did their best to match him up with the dogs on record there. No luck.

I told the town clerk I would take him home, and I gave him my number in case anybody in their right mind should come along looking for this beautiful, gentle animal. Then we took him to my aunt, who knows everything about dogs. She could not place him.  She and my uncle are willing to give him a home because they could see he is a nice dog. 

If this dog has shared the road with you and you can tell me why he was all alone in the middle of one today, I'll bring him to you. I know what it is like to lose a dog by way of a silly mistake. He is warm and safe and well fed and stealing my heart as I type, so if he's yours, please call the town clerk of Roxbury ASAP before I stop being an honest woman and keep him for my own. He is a love, and he should be at home.

From Drop Box

Update (November 4, 2011, 1:30 p.m.)  The sweet dog we had been calling Floyd for the day he was in our lives was previously named Seamus and is back with the two-leggeds who previously named him.  The reunion comes thanks to the help of the "animal control" folks in New Milford and a dear friend whom I had emailed with the scoop and who made some phone calls for me.  The reunion also happened thanks to the cell phones that made communication possible in a state that is still largely in the dark thanks to the ineptitude of Connecticut Light and Power.  Della and I returned Seamus with heavy hearts to a man who brought neither a collar nor a leash to keep him safe.  I gave him one of my (long departed) dog's collars.  

I asked the man how long the dog had been loose.  He said he saw he was gone when he got home at 3 p.m. the day before.  He said the dog uses a Doggy Door but had never before tested the boundaries.  He had not been wearing a collar because, heck, the invisible fence wasn't working and it wouldn't keep him in anyway (ahem, even if it could still hold a dog tag).  The man was stunned because, he said, Velcro Vizslas don't wander; they stay with their people.

So, where were their people?  I had to wonder if this pup had been ditched in the house while the humans sought heat and light elsewhere.  During his day with us, we had called Seamus by the name of Floyd, and he was good with that.  He was also good with the multiple cans of Alpo we fed him.  I joked that this dog was slumming it by eating Alpo.  Not funny:  "He was slumming it; he's never eaten dog food in his life."

If we find Seamus in the road again, he will return to his new life as Floyd.