Over the Christmas break, we had some family friends from high school visit and have lunch with us. As we were talking in the living room, we saw the local animal control van pass by our house and then stop right in front of it. Our first thought was oh know, has Moxie jumped the fence....we made a quick look and she was curled up on the couch so it wasn't her.
We went out to inspect and found the animal control officer corralling a supermodel thin hound dog. The hound had tags and the officer was able to contact the owner who lived a few neighborhoods from our house. However, the hound was going to have to stay at animal control over night and the owner was going to have to pay a fine, a higher one because the dog wasn't neutered.
Well last night as we were heading to bed all of a sudden Moxie jumped out of bed and started barking. Normally, she responds pretty quickly and will come to us. However, this was different and she stood her ground by the front window. Guess who was outside in the dark, freezing night?
Meet Otis. The first picture shows a comparison of Otis and Bela to give you an idea of how big he is...he's large.
Using some peanut butter and a squeaky toy, Otis eventually came inside out of the cold. We were thinking that we would just simply coax him inside, look at his tags, and call his owner to come pick him up. Well, the best laid plans....Otis was missing his tags.
Hmmm....is animal control open at 11pm? If we do call, what will they do?
So, we agreed that he could spend the night, after a few snacks and a meal. :-) The plan was to call animal control in the morning and see if they would give us the owner's phone number and then contact the owner.
Otis is definitely a puppy. However, he responds to sit, shake, and no. And we can happily say that he is house trained. The only accident was this afternoon, when Moxie finally got tired of Otis company and threw up. (We're not anthropomorphic, are we?)
Doug contacted animal control this morning and was able to speak with the officer we met over the holidays. And she happily gave us the owner's information and thanked us for helping her out. So it was quite an adventure but finally this afternoon the owner was able to pick up Otis, who likes to not only jump fences, but apparently dig under them too. Moxie and Bela were happy to see him go and resumed Lake recuperation mode....sleeping heavy.
