Doggy run of another kind

Got an hour run in today but probably should've kept it at 30 - 45 minutes. My legs were toast at the end. Have a bit of a sore throat and feel kind of "draggy" so that may be part of it. But still glad to get it done.

Had a short break in the middle of the run when I saw a very cute scruffy little dog heading toward 23rd Avenue. I stopped and whistled at him...he turned right around and came back, wagging his tail. A man working on a sprinkler system saw this and asked me if it was my dog (all the while the dog is squiggling around in my arms). I told him no and by that time, he had jumped out of my arms and headed again toward 23rd Avenue.

Time for a little speedwork...I sprinted ahead and he looked back and slowed down. I basically dove on him and got a good grip around him, holding him tight. He didn't have a collar so I couldn't hold onto him very well. What to do? I couldn't set him down and run off, he'd get nailed on 23rd Avenue. He was way too cute (and clean) to be a stray so i asked the sprinkler guy if he'd take me and the dog back to my house to put in my yard. He looked at me like I was from another planet and just when I started to say something else, I looked over his shoulder and saw an open gate in a fence near the house where I originally saw him. Ah ha!

I quickly went over there and put him in the backyard and shut the gate. I'm 99% sure that was the house he was from and somehow the gate didn't stay latched and he got out (there was a mower nearby that could've been mowing that yard and he might have left the gate open). If not, the person who lives there will get a pleasant surprise!

In my 25 yrs of running, I bet I have caught 9-10 loose dogs. Most of them were pets but many did not have collars. One of them I found on 35th Avenue and I drug him all the way to Belair Animal hospital by Bear's Car Wash. He was one of the few that had a collar on and I could pull him the whole way.

Why people don't put collars on their dogs I'll never know. I suppose they think that if they are micro-chipped that they don't need a collar. But a collar-less dog is VERY hard to catch and VERY hard to hold onto once they are caught. Believe me, I know!