Brief Encounter - He Followed me Home

While driving down my street, I saw a suspicious character nosing around the neighbors’ houses. Being a good neighbor, I stopped to check him out. As soon as I opened the car door, he walked over and licked my hand, and wagged his tail. This was the start of whirlwind romance.

He was gorgeous Samoyed, about 7 years old. I called county animal control with his license number, but they claimed the number was not valid. We walked around the neighborhood for a couple of hours trying to find his home, with no luck. He is a very sweet dog, the kind of dog a kid would dream of having. He followed me everywhere. I named him Ellisar and we fell in love. He knew all the commands, although he is a little weak on “heal”.

We brought him inside, using interior doors to keep Elisar and Evita, our resident cat, apart. Evita is never very pleased to see another four legged member of the household. We locked Ellisar in the kitchen and den, where he did alright until his loneliness made him howl at 2:00 AM. Kathleen allowed him into the living room and slept on the couch so Ellisar wouldn't be lonely. Ellisar is one of those dogs with “separation issues”; he can’t stand being separated from people. He tried to squeeze on the couch with Kathleen, but after much hand licking by him and persuasion by Kathleen, he settled for the loveseat. He was too pampered to consider sleeping on the floor.

Kathleen called the county again in the morning, this time they were able to locate the dog’s owners from the license number. She called the owners and we walked Ellisar back home. They call him Billy, how dull. I am so relieved we were able to find his owners, since I had bonded with Ellisar to the degree that I would not ever want to surrender him to the SPCA or the county. Evita was relieved to see Ellisar leave. She is now firm in her role as four-legged queen of the house. The next night, I dreamed about finding dogs and dreamed about what life would have been like with Ellisar as our best friend.