Misheru

Today I saw this little dog wandering around the wash near Ben’s school, and before Marti could blink I had jumped out of the car, picked up the dog and placed him between Ben and Maya.  Maya, of course, “loved him” all the way back to the house to drop him off with Saffron while we went to a meeting with our tax guy. An hour later we came back, humbled after getting yelled at by the tax guy for not having all our documents from 2007 (I barely can keep track of documents from YESTERDAY) when I realized that the little dog had slipped out of our yard.  We’re used to our 50-pound hound, who couldn’t get through the bars without a crowbar and a diet, but of course this little 10-pound ball of fluff probably just walked right through them after we drove away.  Duh.  So I put the leash on Saffron and proceeded to walk the arroyos all the way back to where we found the little guy the first time.  Forty-five minutes and many scary underground graffiti-filled tunnels later, we hadn’t found the dog, so I headed home on top of the ground rather than under it.  Saffron and I finally get back to the house when I decide to peek the OTHER direction down the arroyo and we walk half a block down, where I see a little bit of fluff moving behind the house NEXT DOOR.  Yes, the DOG WAS NEXT DOOR THE ENTIRE TIME.

Oh well.  At least Saffron and I got our exercise.  Also, there were some fantastically beautiful places in those tunnels, like one with a mirrored vent up to the road that sparkled like crystals and made even the graffiti beautiful.  One of these days I’m going to dredge up my courage and take my new camera down those washes and film some of those places.  Hopefully with a weapon in the other hand.  It’s hard to believe there are such deserted places weaving through and under the center of the city.

Regardless, fluff ball was duly re-captured and brought back to the house.  I washed him, and washed him, and washed him, and then I cut a million burrs out of his coat, including some very painful and gross ones around his rear end (if God is a dog lover, I definitely upped the size of my mansion with that one).  He was pretty good-natured about the whole thing, just crying a bit when it hurt, and frantically licking me as a kind of peace gesture.  I’ve filed a lost dog report with the humane society and posted a photo on craigslist, so we’ll see if this little guy has an owner somewhere.  It’s hard to say; he is clearly a sweet dog, but it looks like he’s been lost for a while, as he is a little sick with diarrhea and was full of burrs, and I combed out a tick and a lot of dirt from his coat.  He’s been duly sprayed with flea/tick spray, and gotten a little disinfectant on the sore bits.  If you recognize him, leave a comment and I’ll be in touch.

And yes, I’m a big sucker, but look at that face: