Run, Lola, Run

(Based on the author’s recent experience)

Alex Chambers shot through the busy intersection at North Oak and 96th Street. He caught only a brief, sideways glimpse of a large dog running back and forth by the curb, barking and lunging at cars and trucks buzzing past.

Alex eased off the accelerator, shaken by what he’d seen. In his rear view mirror, he could make out what looked to be a to be a beautiful Golden Retriever poised at the curb, about to dash through the traffic and across the street.

Alex glanced down at the sack resting next to him on the passenger seat. He’d made a quick breakfast run to MacDonald’s to grab an Egg McMuffin breakfast and a coffee for his hard-working wife (he'd already disposed of her tater tot). Any conflict between a lost dog and delivering a piping hot MacDonald’s breakfast to his wife seemed easily resolved. No need to recall the philosophy course required for his liberal arts degree so long ago. Kant, the Stoics, Camus, Buddha, William James . . . hell’s bells . . . even Dick Cheney or Rod Blagojevich would know the right thing to do. So Alex made a quick U-turn in front of a hulking, on-coming SUV. The driver, some frizzed up woman gabbing on her cell phone, gave him the finger.

“I hope you radiate your ugly self,” Alex yelled at her.

Back at the intersection, no sign of the dog.

Alex took a left at the stoplight and drove slowly down 96^th Street. Another left turn brought him into a subdivision filled with rows of look-alike town homes. After five minutes cruising through the winding streets and a stop to question anyone out and about, including a middle-aged, spindle-legged guy wearing nylon basketball shorts, flip-flops, and a pink tee-shirt bearing the legend . . . “Sluthugger,” Alex headed towards home, disappointed at not finding the lost pooch, but pleased he’d made an honest effort. “Trying to do right in a world that does wrong,” Alex paraphrased the 17^th century Puritan leader, John Winthrop. As a professor, Alex had often used that line in his American history classes, admittedly with little abiding impact and a great number of odd looks from his students.

“Thanks, honey. But how come everything’s cold?”  Alex’s wife, Susan, worked from home as a business consultant, liked doing so, and made a good living at it.

“There’s a reason, sweets.” Alex went on to explain about the morning’s lost dog search.

Abby shuffled papers on her desk and tilted one of her two computer monitors for a better view. She offered equal chunks of the MacDonald’s to Reba and Maxx, large mixed breeds rescued from the animal shelter. The pair gulped down their treats and pleaded for more.

“By the way,” Susan said. “Mark Hotchkiss just called about golf.”

“Aahh. I forgot all about playing with the guys this morning.”

“Just be back by three o’clock. We’re supposed to look at tile samples.” Susan clicked on one of the many email messages on her computer screen. “Have fun, and don’t worry about the dog. Someone will find it.”

Sure enough, Alex’s friends were about to tee off on the third hole by the time he raced up in his golf cart. After the usual round of insults and jokes about absent-minded professors, the foursome teed it up and bashed their drives everywhere but on the fairway. By the 8^th hole, the hackers had totaled scores on each hole that rivaled Tiger Woods’ off-course shenanigans.

As Alex tapped in a missed putt for a spiffy triple bogey, he spotted a big dog rutting in the tall grass near the 9^th tee. It looked like the golden retriever he'd spotted earlier. Sure, Alex reasoned, there had been more than enough time for the lost dog to wander down from North Oak and 96^th to the golf course. It was only about a mile or so. Alex walked over by the tee-box, whistling and calling for the dog to come. The dog paid Alex no attention--too busy sniffing something.

“Come on, doggie. Over here.” Alex inched towards where the dog now rolled on its back, twisting its long fur into a patch of prairie grass. The dog spied Alex’s stealthy approach, popped back up on four large paws, wagging its tale in an enthusiastic greeting.

Alex gently grasped the dog’s collar to search for identification tags. All he found was a battery pack for an electronic fence system. No battery in it. The dog sat and stared all gooey-eyed at Alex. Its tail brushed back and forth through the grass in a happy design.

“This is the same dog I saw this morning up at North Oak and 96^th,” Alex said. His friends walked over to inspect the dog.

“What are you going to do?” Gary TenEyck asked.

"Why not take him to that vet near the grocery store." Mark Hotchkiss suggested

“It’s a her,” Alex corrected, watching the dog squat down and take a leak. “Let’s load her in the golf cart. I’ll catch up with you chumps on the back nine.”

At the vet clinic, a young man working the reception desk ran a scanner over the lost dog, searching for an identification chip. “No license tags. No chip.” The young man scratched his head. “What kind of owner does that?”

“Can you keep her?” Alex asked.

“No sir. We’re full up with lost dogs.” The assistant pointed to several missing dog notices and heartrending photos of hapless canines displayed on the front window. “Do you want us to notify animal control?”

Alex didn’t want any part of that plan. “No. I’ll look around the neighborhood . . . maybe put up some posters.”

The lost dog cuddled up against Alex’s leg.

Back home, Maxx and Reba made it clear to the newcomer exactly who ruled the roost. The lost dog showed good judgment by flopping on his back, sticking all four legs into the air, and submitting to mandatory sniffing and dominance rituals. Having passed the test, Reba offered the newcomer her squeaky toy. Maxx had other plans.

“Watch it Maxx,” Susan warned the elderly, black and white dog, “you’ll throw your back out doing like that. That’s disgusting.”

Once the three dogs settled down, Alex took a couple of photos of the lost one. Susan downloaded the best photo and made up about 50 fliers with a banner reading: “Do You Know Me? . . . I’m Lost!”

“Do you want some help posting these?” Susan asked. "I need a break."

“Sure,” Alex said. “We can put these up where I first saw the dog, and ask around to see if anybody recognizes her.”

For the next two hours, Alex and Susan drove through the neighborhoods surrounding the intersection where Alex had first spotted the lost dog. They taped up the posters on telephone polls, fence posts, and to the occasional tree. Every so often, they’d spy a local citizen on a porch or futzing in a yard. In one of the older neighborhoods, filled with bland two story, three bedroom homes dating from the late 1950s, Abby struck up a conversation with a couple of teenage girls busy talking and texting on cell phones.

“It looks like the dog up the street in that beige colored house,” said one of the girls, examining the lost dog’s photo on the flier. “It’s always running loose around the neighborhood.”

Several others folks Alex and Abby met in the same area affirmed what the teens had described. But nobody answered the door at the home identified as the residence of, as one elderly woman cackled, “those folks with that crazy renegade mutt. Darn thing’s probably out gallivanting around right now.”

Abby stapled a flier to the wooden fence near the suspect dog’s residence.

Back home, after running through all fifty lost dog fliers on their errand of mercy, Alex took the three dogs on a walk. As he and the dogs returned from what seemed to be a round-the-clock peeing contest, Susan called out, “Alex, somebody’s on the phone for you.”

“Mr. Chambers? Hi. This is Megan O’Brien. I hear from my neighbors you might have my dog,” Ms. O’Brien said. “The battery ran low on Lola’s electronic fence collar. She must have wandered off.”

It turned out the young woman was at that moment turning down Alex’s street, so he and Lola walked out to flag her down. She pulled over to the curb, smiling brightly and calling out to her dog, “Here Lola. Come to Momma.”

Lola took a runner into the field across the street from Alex’s house.

Eventually, Alex convinced the dog to come back. Ms. O’Brien grabbed the Lola’s collar, and urged her into the back seat of her SUV. “This dog is more trouble. You’re just my naughty, naughty girl.”

Lola strained against her owner’s insistent pulling. Alex helped the woman hoist the dog into the back seat.

“Before I picked her up on the ninth tee, I saw her way down on North Oak and 96^th . . . around nine this morning,” Alex said. He watched Lola press her nose against the rear window of the SUV, smudging the glass with a good deal of slobber. “It’s been a long day for that girl.”

Ms. O’Brien seemed hesitant to reply. She held her hands pressed together under her chin. “I . . . don’t think that was Lola you saw this morning.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Lola rode with me to the kids’ school this morning. I didn’t put her out in the yard until about 10:00.” Ms. O'Brien gave Alex an affectionate tap on his arm and a wry smile. "We live on the ninth tee."

By that evening, the story of Alex and Lola had spread to more than a few friends and folks in the neighborhood. Alex didn't know what he least appreciated, his neighbors smirks and whispered asides, or the phone calls from his golfing buddies. “Is the dog-napper around?”

Alex sat on his front porch to watch the sun go down, sipping what remained of a favorite Napa Valley merlot. A lone dog ambled past on the street as Alex finished the last of his wine. The dog paused, its tongue drooping with fatigue and thirst, its fur mottled and dotted with loose twigs and briars. It stared in Alex’s direction, but reluctantly continued its path.

Alex went inside. He placed his empty wine glass on the kitchen counter.

“Damn it,” he sighed, and grabbed a leash hanging by the door.