4-legged house guest

While walking Maggie a week ago Thursday, a woman stopped her car by me, rolled down her window and said, "Is that your dog?"

I looked down at Maggie, standing at the end of her leash and replied, "Um... yes."

 "Not that one," the woman said. "THAT one," pointing back over her shoulder at a little white dog sniffing a bush about 100ft away.

"Nope, not mine," I said, hoping that would be the end of it but knowing I'd go rescue the dog. So we walked toward it, me talking in a dog-friendly voice and Maggie wagging her tail off at the thought of a dog to play with. It came right to me and since I happened to have an extra leash with me, I snapped it on her. Luckily she had a collar but no tags. TAG YOUR DOGS, PEOPLE!

I proceeded to walk the neighborhood for 30 minutes hoping to find its house. No luck, so I went home, took her pic, made flyers and set out in the car stopping everyone I saw to see if they recognized the dog. Still no luck, so I took her home and there she stayed until Saturday evening when her family finally called. We named her Betty for no reason other than she looked like a Betty and lit up when we called her.

She and Maggie ran themselves silly in the back yard for hours, and while she was with us, she fit right in like she'd been here for years. Maggie sleeps with us, in a dog bed down by our feet, so I wedged another dog bed in, pointed at it, and Betty hopped right in and slept the night.

In the evenings, we sit on a love seat-sized La-Z-Boy and watch the tube or read. She jumped up, found a spare lap and flopped down. Too funny.

When her family called, I gave them a brief earful about being a responsible pet owner. But they seemed like nice people and Betty (aka Charlie) was thrilled to see them so I gave her back. Turned out she lived about 75ft from where I found her, in one of the few houses whose door I didn't knock on. If she'd had TAGS, I could have called them within minutes of finding her.