Hi, Do I Look Familiar?

My brother came home the other day, only to come in the house and tell me that he was going back out to move his car.  It was windy that day and we all hate parking under the car-denting palm tree that's so iconic (but annoying) of Los Angeles.  Okay, didn't really make a difference to what I was doing, so I continued on drinking my coffee.

I then got a call from him telling me to grab gloves or put on pants and shoes or something and join him outside.  Not that I wander around the house barefoot and in my underwear, for some reason that privilege is reserved only for men I guess.  My first thought though was, "damn spiteful ass palm tree threw a frond onto one of our cars."  Except as I was grabbing my gloves what he really said to me over the phone finally registered in my head, so I grabbed a handful of dog treats and one of Lilah's old leashes.

Despite my brother being tired from his early call time that day and me midway thru recovering from a stress fracture in my foot after having completed a poorly trained for half-marathon, we proceeded to track down a small stray dog my brother had seen when moving his car.  I wish I had been more appropriately dressed, but at least I was wearing sweat pants, a shirt and shoes.

Fifteen minutes later we had the collar-less small dog successfully leashed.  We then walked all around the neighborhood with the frightened, but friendly little guy, trying to find his owner.  We posted hastily made flyers at high-traffic corners and spoke with several people walking about to see if they recognized him.  We also sat on the front porch with my mom and the little stray, hoping to catch sight of a distressed person holding a leash and calling out a name. 

But no suck luck.  It started to get dark and we were finally feeling the stress after the initial adrenaline rush wore off.  What to do, what to do...

Nothing else to do, but bring the little guy in and let him stay the night.  Thankfully he's pretty sweet, no signs of aggression or fear/nervousness.  So first thing first though, we made sure to give him a bath.  If that little sucker was going to spend the night in my room, I wanted to make sure he wasn't tracking in all sorts of unknown grime.  He took it like a champ, much better than Lilah had as a puppy.  Surprisingly, he wasn't that dirty either.  And he slept through the night without trouble.  And not even a single flea bite for me.

A couple trips to the pet hospital for a microchip check, brief exam and a few vaccinations, and he's still here, sleeping by my legs as I write this up.

We've posted on craigslist and posted more flyers, but no owner yet.  We're all still hoping that his owner will come looking for him, because honestly this little guy is so sweet that he must have gotten separated from a loving (though questionably irresponsible) owner.

Lilah and Ritter have not officially met Stray (I'm too embarrassed by what my brother tentatively named him to see it in print) as we weren't sure about vaccinations and whatnot.  They do however, bark at him every time I have to take him outside.  When they do meet, that'll for sure be a separate post.