Chasing Charlie

I walked out to my car today after work, and as I was searching for my cell phone to turn it on, I glanced around the parking lot and spotted something gold. From a distance, I first thought it was a golden retriever. There is a guy in the neighborhood whom I'll see some mornings walking his golden on campus. I've watched that puppy grow up over the last couple of years, and my first thought was it was them. As I drove toward the exit I realized it wasn't a golden but an adorable little cocker spaniel...and he was alone.

I parked my car and got out and called to the puppy, but I spooked him and he ran away from me. At about this time, Marianne, one of my coworkers (who is also a huge animal lover like myself) walked out to her car. She spotted the dog and yelled asking me if I was going to try to help him. Both us of went wondering around the campus yelling for this cute little guy. We're off of a pretty busy road, so both of us were worried that he would get hit. He kept running from us, so we didn't know what we were going to do. We both carry leashes in our cars just in case we run into something like this. We decided to hop in our cars and drive down the main road to see if we can spot him. We didn't see him so she headed on home, but something wouldn't let me give up on this little guy. I doubled back down one of the side streets and just as I was about to give up, I spotted him snooping around someone's yard. I got out and started talking to him. He was a little bit leery of me, but he was quite interested in the peanut butter bones I just happened to have in my jacket pocket.

As I was using the peanut butter bones to try to lure him close enough to get a look at his collar, an older lady came out of her house and said she saw me trying to help him and knows where he lives. I learned that his name is Charlie, and he actually lived a couple of houses down from where we were. She went back inside to call her neighbor, but then came back out and said there was no answer. Even though she admitted she wasn't an "pet lover," she helped me maneuver him into his backyard where she unlatched the gate and got him inside his fence.

That's my good deed for the day. Charlie is now safe at home.

When I got home, I refilled my supply of peanut butter bones just in case! You just never know when they'll come in handy.

This isn't an actual picture of Charlie, but I went online to verify that he actually was a cocker spaniel, and I found this picture right away that looks exactly like him!

Picture courtesy Europuppy.com.