Dumb Dog

What an emotional weekend we had! It started off great with Nate and I going camping Friday night in the beautiful Rocky Mountains where we were constantly reminded of why we are happy to be back in Colorado. Saturday was spent catching up on sleep, then mowing the lawn and getting things ready to be donated while Lisa and Austin spent a large part of Saturday at his season-ending basketball tournament in Denver (his team finished on Saturday with a 2-0 record and avoided the consolation bracket!). That evening the boys went with their friends to the movies: Ironman (Austin and friends) or Prince Caspian (Nathan and friends). While they were out Lisa and I loaded up the van with the items to be donated. Unfortunately, we left the front door open a little too long and off went Leo! It couldn't have been more than 10 minutes until we noticed that he was gone, but that is plenty of time for him. He is a runner with high anxiety levels and is very curious. He's been on several walks around our area, but we feared that he may get too far away by the time his curiosity expires and he is looking to return home. We proceeded to look for him, starting in our neighborhood and eventually encompassing a large part of Broomfield until it became dark and we had to head home and file a report. We were worried, sad, etc... and we still had to tell the boys when they got home.

Sunday was spent at the conclusion of Austin's basketball tournament which meant that we had to call all of the shelters and various animal control units in the Denver metro area while still cheering him on through hours of games and waiting between games. He did a phenomenal job and his team came in 3rd overall. That is very good considering how many teams particpated. However, as time went on it was harder to have positive thoughts about our dumb dog and where he could be. Is he hurt? Hungry?

A large part of our time was spent checking in with the shelters and animal control agencies on Monday. We called each shelter numerous times, dropped off flyers of our missing, dumb dog, and posted "lost" ads on Craigslist and on some of the shelters websites. We also posted "Lost Dog" notices in our neighborhood. I don't consider myself a pessimist, but I really thought that by monday that that dumb dog had found a way to get himself run over, injured, or lost miles away. I really didn't think the "Lost Dog" notices in our neighborhood would amount to anything since he is very difficult to catch. However, on Tuesday there was a phone call from a neighbor two blocks away saying that our dumb dog had walked into their house Saturday night at ~11pm and started eating out of their dogs food bowl. They had kept our dumb dog ever since!!

Of course we are very pleased by the way things turned out. I must say, though, that these people had called a majority of the same shelters we were talking to over the 2 previous days and were telling them that they had found a yellow lab (a dumb yellow lab may have been more accurate). Why didn't this information ever get passed on?! The people calling about a lost yellow lab live 2 blocks from where people are calling about a found yellow lab and that gets missed?!

Finally, to end on some more positive news, Austin has landed a job working in a concession stand for the summer at the local waterpark and baseball fields (owned by the same company). Both of these locations are nearly visible from our house! He is excited about being a working man. His new boss said that he could eat while working, but I think that that may change once they see how much he can eat!