Those of you who read here very often know that it's dang near a full time job keeping up with the critters. I spend almost as much on dog and cat food as I do people food, and still they get a bite of what we're having! They all stay close to home except for Faith when she goes lookin' for a booty call. I'm on "probation" with animal control because the next time she's picked up by them I have to go to court and pay the fees for her being a "nuisance." Uh..okay. She might lick you to death or something.

Anyways,everytime I pull out of the driveway Sam insists on racing me down the lane. I outrun him about the time I reach the dairy barn and he hightails it to home. Yesterday I was headed out and I noticed Faith running beside me too but I lost sight of both of them in the corn and carried on with the business at hand. I didn't really notice that she wasn't around last night becuase half the time she's asleep on the couch and is sort of like part of the scenery.

This morning, BG called wanting to know what time I let the dogs out. "I didn't" was my reply. "Faith isn't here." Oh. Hell. Here we go to court. So I call the animal shelter planning on a desperate plea to the dogcatcher to call me when he found her and I'd come to the TRUCK to pick her up so she wouldn't have to go to the pound. And I got a recording. Left my message saying to call me when they got in.

Within 30 seconds of hanging up the phone, another line rang and it was for me. The young lady said that she thought she had my dog and you could have knocked me over with a feather. "Where are you?" I asked. She and her husband live in Lenox which is about eight miles from where I live close to the Mississippi river. No way she could have gotten that far. She then began to tell me the story of how her husband is a UPS driver on 2nd shift and their hub is about a mile from my house, across the highway. When he left on a haul to Memphis after 4, she was there and he told her that if she was still there when he got back, she was coming home with him because she was obviously somebody's baby...collar, well trained. He even checked her out on the sit lay and shake routine! She spent the time during his absence jumping in and out of big brown trucks and generally having all kinds of canine fun. When quittin' time came, she went to Lenox with her finder and his wife called the animal clinic today to find out who she was registered to. Voila! Faith returns.

Again.

You should have seen her pretty brown face when I walked up to the pen she was in. She looked like she was trying to say "Mama I KNEW you'd come for me!" tail wagging a hundred miles an hour and trying to get sugar. Thank goodness some people are good and kind. We headed out with her head hanging from the back window to catch the wind just right and at that moment nothing else mattered but home.

By the way, the shelter never returned my call. *humph*