Where Did That Dog Come From?!?

So, I'm sitting at my desk this afternoon around 3:45, knee-deep in small-business tax issues in Kentucky, when my next door neighbor rings the doorbell. She asked me if I knew there was a big dog in the backyard. No, I did not.

The boys had been very quiet, and I had my music up a little loud, so I never heard this dog break one of the fence panels off of the gate. (One was already broken [see photo], by the way, he just made the entry for himself a little bigger.)

He was a big black lab who looked just like the lab that lives across the street from us. So I called that neighbor to see if she was missing a dog. She wasn't. But this intruder dog did have on a tag that I could see from the back door -- his name is Bear -- so I grabbed the phone and headed outside to call his owners. Voice mail. I filled a bucket with fresh water and he drank and drank and drank...

I thought I'd go in and get him a treat, just in case it had been a week since he had eaten. And the door wouldn't budge. I was locked out with this strange dog who could kill me at any moment. T.J. and Bugsy were just staring at me and Bear through the door. Bear drank. T.J. barked. My jaw dropped to the porch. How could I have gotten locked out?!?

Luckily, I had the phone in hand and Cole's office is only six miles away. He was on his way to save me. While he was headed this way, Bear's owner called and was in the neighborhood. Bear and I went to the front yard to wait for someone to come rescue at least one of us.

He didn't eat me. He was a very sweet dog. And It was 76 with a cloudless sky this afternoon, so being "stuck" outside wasn't so bad.

Cole showed up about three minutes after Bear's owner, and T.J. and Bugsy ran out the back door like they were the ones saving the day. They checked every inch of the yard to make sure that strange giant dog wasn't still hiding on their turf.

When all the drama was over, I had only been away from the office for about 10 minutes.