Oh, one thing I forgot to mention yesterday! I found two lost dogs!
After my 5k run, I stopped outside by a low brick wall to do some stretches as a warm-down. As I began, I noticed two small dogs, Jack Russell terriers, running through the park and then across the street. I thought it was a bit unusual that they weren’t accompanied by any obvious owner, but figured maybe they were following behind and were obscured by the trees along the path. It’s fairly common for dog owners here to walk dogs off-lead, so I didn’t immediately think it was anything to worry about, although it was a bit strange that the dogs crossed the street alone.
I finished my stretches and started walking up the hill towards my own home, and saw the two dogs running uphill ahead of me, again with no owner in sight. Now I thought this was weird and they might have been lost. So I followed them, hoping to catch up. Fortunately they decided to explore an overgrown area by the railway line, which didn’t have any other exits. I followed them in, making my way through the undergrowth, and tried calling to the dogs. Fortunately they were friendly and approached me. I grabbed their collars and tried to see if there was a phone number. The first dog didn’t seem to have one, but the second had a metal name tag, with a phone number on the back.
I rang the number and a man answered. I said I’d found his dogs running loose. He said he’d give my number to his ex-wife, and she’d call me to organise to get them. He said she still hadn’t changed the tags with his phone number on them. Okay… so I had to wait several minutes for the woman to call e back. I was beginning to think she wouldn’t and I’d have to cal the man again, but then my phone rang.
She thanked me for contacting them and asked where I was. I told her, and she said, “What? All the way down there?!” It was clear her dogs had wandered a fair distance from home. Then she said she’d contact her daughter to come pick the dogs up, and that she was currently in the gym at Lane Cove (a suburb several minutes drive away)! So I guessed I’d just have to wait. I had the dogs by the collars, and thankfully they settled down and sat quietly – except when any other dogs walked past, when they went crazy, lunging and barking at the other dog. I had to apologise to a couple of walkers saying they weren’t my dogs and I was waiting for the owner.
Then a few minutes later I got a text message from the woman, saying she was coming to get the dogs, because she couldn’t get in contact with her daughter. And then another few minutes later she messaged again to say the daughter was on her way! Finally a car drove up and the daughter (I guess in her 20s) got out to retrieve the dogs. They clearly recognised her and I let them go, and they jumped in the car. She was thanking me when another dog owner walked past with a mid-sized cavoodle, and one of the Jack Russells leapt out of the car and attacked the cavoodle! It was growling and barking aggressively and trying to bite the other dog around the neck. The owner was trying to get his dog away from the attack, and the woman was trying to call her dog off. Eventually it stopped attacking and ran back to the car. The man raced away a bit and then stopped to examine his dog. The woman called out to ask if it was okay, and thankfully the man said that his dog was uninjured.
It was pretty awful. I’d been holding these two dogs by the collar for 25 minutes or so, waiting for the owner to arrive and then just as she arrived someone happened to walk past with another dog that one of them attacked after I let them go. It kind of took the shine off the feeling of doing a good deed.
Today was another fairly usual day, spent mostly at home, with some walks for Scully. I did another 5k run, but the weather this morning was significantly warmer and more humid than yesterday, so I took it easy and ran almost a minute slower. Oh, and I picked up the grocery shopping for the week.
Tonight is board games night. It’s supposed to be in-person according to the fortnightly rotation, but so many of my friends are off one holidays with their families between Christmas and New Year that we’re doing it online, and there are only three of us playing. I’ve won three successive games of Jump Drive, and am now trying to win Ticket to Ride: Europe.
New content today:
