<p style="text-align:center;"><em>By Guest Blogger Chicken Wrangler Sara</em></p>
Our neighbors are dog sitting this summer.  This is the neighbors with the chain link fence, not the privacy fence.  The dog is a large breed and our dachshunds love to run up and down the fence line with him.  His name is Zander.

One morning Matt looked out the front window and asked, “Isn’t that the dog the neighbors are watching?”

I looked and sure enough it looked just like Zander. We went outside, Matt took him by the collar, and we started walking next door.  The gate to the back yard was closed and I considered just putting Zander back in the yard but decided we probably needed to let the neighbors know there was an escape route somewhere in the fence.

We knocked on the door and heard barking – from inside.  Unless the dog we were holding was a ventriloquist, there was another dog inside.

We checked the tag. It did not say “Zander.” It did, however, have a phone number which Matt called.

Since it was an out of town number, he was hoping it was a college student who was unable to keep the dog. (Matt really wants a big dog to run with him.) The owner answered the phone and quickly came to retrieve the dog, much to Matt’s dismay.

Meanwhile, the neighbors had ignored the barking (something we did well until the fire episode) and never even came to the door. I was very glad we had not deposited the dog in the back yard.  It would have been a shock for humans and dogs.

The following week we found ourselves in the opposite role of the story.  Some boys in the neighborhood who like to check eggs accidentally left the gate open and two of our dogs escaped.

<a href="https://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/tucker.png"><img class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-4789" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/tucker.png?w=150" alt="tucker" width="150" height="131" /></a>Tucker just went next-door and quickly returned to our house. I guess he knows a good thing.

Bella, on the other hand, took off running as fast as she could. Think of the ginger bread boy – “Run, run as fast as you can. You can’t catch me I’m Bella.”

Rachel took off after her with Matt right behind. Matt, being much taller and faster, was able to catch up and corral Bella toward the house. He only thought he needed a big dog to run with him.

As she crossed the street, a car stopped and two people got out joining in the chase. I guess they were dog lovers also.

<a href="https://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/bella2.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-4790" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/bella2.jpg?w=150" alt="bella2" width="150" height="112" /></a>I really believe Bella would have come on home if she had remembered which house was hers.  We finally chased her through the front door where she collapsed for the rest of the evening.

So our willingness to help a total stranger when his dog escaped was returned by total strangers who helped us get Bella home.

All of us dog lovers have to stick together.

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