We asked him to come on in, you know, within the safety of our walls. He came, cautiously. He visibly relaxed once we’d closed the gate. We gave him some water and encouraged him to settle down. We gave him a little sustenance too. He couldn’t tell us where he was from – where he had been. There was no form of identification on him that could help us piece together a bit of story about dear George.
The only thing to do was to get the word out. Somebody must have been missing the little boy George. We live in what people call the information age. Ours is the day of easy communication. But how does one spread the word about a lost soul? Where do you put it? The authorities of course!
‘He’s mostly white, with some black. He’s about two years old, I’d say’
Descriptions. Time of finding. Location. And of course our contact details.
It looked like George was going to be spending the night with us. I wasn’t sure how he would be with our other children, especially the youngest one. How would they feel? How would they react?
We continued as normally as we could. We made dinner – with wine of course – and managed through the eating part with relative ease. Sleeping was the next big thing that needed doing. George seemed pretty cool with most things, as long as we weren’t out of his sight at any stage. This meant he needed to be near us when we slept. So do our other children. This was going to be a problem.
After some debate, it was decided, I’d move into the spare room for the night and George could settle there. While my partner and our kids stayed in our room.
You know that sleep, or not-sleep, where you have one eye on your charge the whole time? While that was me. The little guy slept through though, which was an indication of just how tired he was from his crazy adventure.
I was rather panicky the next day about this poor little fella’s future.
Thankfully, his mom called at 9:00 – distraught.
Turned out his name was really Duke and he went on a little stroll when their gate was left open by their forgetful tenant. His youth and inexperience didn’t help him to keep track of where his home was. He got lost.
I did enjoy George though – in fact I was rather sad when he left. And I have changed my opinion of pitbulls now.
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| George AKA Duke |
