Zeke

On our way home from Cafe Java yesterday, we saw a large dog loose in the middle of the Metric/Gracy Farms intersection. Since we weren't in a hurry, we decided to pull over to see if we could locate the dog's owner -- that's what I'd like for others to do if they ever saw Homer running lose (not that anyone could get close enough to him to read his tags).

The dog came to me when I called, and although he was rumbunctious (all 80 lbs of him), I managed to get his name, Ezekiel, and his owner's phone #. The number didn't work, so we loaded him in Jfer's car and took him home to try again later. The dog looked like a cross between a huge German Shepherd (coloring, head and ears) and a Chow (thick fur and curled tail), and although big, he seemed fairly young, and he was most definitely not fixed. He also seemed very gentle and friendly.

We got him home and in the back yard. Later we introduced him to Homer, and once they got over some initial dominance issues (initiated by Homer) they actually played around (initiated by Zeke). We kept Zeke in the back yard, and had to listen to his attempts to get in the house to join us.

So this morning I called the vet's number on the dog's rabies tag and some time later the owner called Jennifer back and eventually picked Zeke up. It turned out that Zeke was not a mutt but rather a $1000 pure-bread Akita. They'd been looking for him all day long on Sunday and the reason the phone # on his tag wasn't working was because Zeke had previously eaten that cell phone!

So all's well that ends well and the dog and his owner are reunited. And Homer was lucky enough that Zeke (who appears to be a lover and not a fighter) didn't seem to be aggressive towards other dogs -- a trait of that breed. Or maybe Zeke thought that Homer was a girl.