They played with "Nick" all morning long. (They named him after St. Nick!)He caught snowballs they threw, dug in the snow to find things they hid, and played "Squash" with the kids. Squash is a lot like playing ball, but when you don't have a ball or a stick to throw, but you do have a frozen squash on your front porch that the cute doggie likes, then you play "Squash" instead! As they played, I called around the neighborhood trying to find who this collarless, tagless pup belonged to. With the help from some other people it was narrowed down to three potential families. I told the kids we needed to go for a walk and find out where this puppy really lived and around lunchtime the (reluctant...disappointed...down trodden... pick an adjective) kids and I went for a very sad Christmas walk to find where "Nick" lived.
We did find his home... much to the kids' dismay. His real name was Sampson and he had jumped his fence and left his leash and collar behind in his yard. Garrett and Owen were so sad to leave him and to realize that Santa had left him for us. They ended up leaving the squash with Sampson in his pen so that he could remember his fun day with them. (How sad is that?!) They had spent the most wonderful 4 hours playing with him and it was an emotional experience for them to give him back to his rightful home. I had to explain to them that Santa wouldn't have given them a dog for Christmas because he knows that we aren't allowed to have dogs in our house right now. That maybe sometime in the future he could, but right now Santa knows that doing that would get us in trouble with our landlords, and he wouldn't want that for us. So they were more okay with leaving Sampson at his house.
It ended a little sad, but what a wonderful day it was!
1 comment:
Perhaps they could be granted visitation once in a while. Sounds like Sampson could use it, too.
Post a Comment