Whilst returning from the park this morning I met a couple of young chaps with a chihuahua that seemed to have adopted them. She had a collar but no visible means of identification. They asked me if I knew of her owner, but never having seen the dog before, I had no idea.
We tried phoning the dog warden service, but it's Saturday, and dogs are not allowed to be lost out of office hours. Eventually I phoned Southend Police who put me through to the Council's emergency number. They spoke to one of the young blokes and we seemed to be making some kind of progress. The problem was that there is a vet's service, a couple of miles away, who deals with stray dogs, but I'm without transport today as Dez has the car visiting a pal in North Essex and returning via his narrow-boat-owning cousin for dinner in Chelmsford.
I left the blokes with something to aim at, but said if they were stuck, I'd do what I could to help and told them my address. They turned up with a friend, and the dog, having drawn a blank. I found the out-of-hours dog service and was told that there is a vet not that far away where the dog's microchip (if any) can be read. I offered Bug-eyes (my name for the chihuahua) some lunch and kept Morphy back in case there should be any jealousy, but he was actually very good and I probably need not have worried, other than that this small dog weighed scarcely more than his head and even well-intentioned clumsiness on his part could have been quite damaging.
I didn't think I had it within me to like a chihuahua but she was a lovely little dog who just had that look that made you want to rescue her. She also ate a piece of Morphy's dog-meat from my hand, made eye contact and wagged appreciatively as she scoffed it.
I do hope that they can sort her out as otherwise I might be offering a home to a dog I don't really want. I like a bigger dog that you can take for a walk, not a tiny thing that would break of you trod on it.
