December 2 – “Jake”

We had an unexpected overnight guest last night.  As we were getting into the car to go to youth group at Seaside, our dogs were barking like crazy in the back yard.  Chris paused at her open door, gazed around the neighbor's yard for a few seconds, and said, "Oh.  There's the cat.  That's what they are barking at."  Quite an astute observation.  And probably the right motivation for the racket.  But that's not what really got her attention.  Right about then she felt something very small brush past her leg and over her foot.  To her credit she didn't completely lose it.  She didn't really see it clearly, but she saw enough to know it was very small and had fur.  That could be a myriad of beasts, but when she told me, my first thought was a big rat.   I closed my door and scanned the ground.  There it was.  No.  Gone.  No.  There it is again.  Coming right at me.  And I saw the creature clearly in the light from the bulb on the front porch.  Speaking in my best "Come here, Little one, but don't bite me" voice, I squatted down to attempt a catch.  And it came right to me.  It was a huge hairy rat after all.  It was a little Yorkshire Terrier, a Yorky.    He was obviously well-groomed, and my first thought was, "Hey.  It doesn't stink."  I guess that shows the depth of my concern at that point.  We decided to drive around and see if anyone was out looking for him.  Failing that, we took him to the animal clinic on 61st street.  That was marked on his tag.  Of course they were closed.  We called the phone number, and it said not to leave a message, but of it was an emergency we could call another clinic.  Not an emergency.  The little squirt would just have to stay with us overnight, and we would call the vet clinic in the morning.   We took him with us to youth group.  He wasn't too much of a distraction.  We have little dogs show up off and on all the time anyway.  The problem was we didn't have a leash with us, so I didn't want to just let him run around outside.  I finally found an old cable lying around from Gigamo Electronics.  Great name.  The cable was just the right size, so I tied it to his collar and let him roam around outside for awhile before we came home.  He was a popular guy with the ladies.  They were thinking up names for him.  I heard Zak and Sam.  I told them his name was Maher-shal-al-hashbaz.     He did very well with our dogs.  He and Fritz played in the back yard until after ten o'clock.  And he learned the dog door quickly as well.  He seemed to be fitting in with little difficulty.  Until we turned out the lights and went to bed.  We hadn't been in bed but about ten minutes when Chris said, "Our little friend in outside the door."  I didn't hear anything, but I sure didn't want him roaming the house all night, marking territory and tearing things up.  So I got up and went on a hunt.  I walked around the hall first, and didn't see anything.  So I turned on the light in the office, and there he was.  But when I approached him, he disappeared again.  I went in and verified with Chris that he was indeed out.  Then the hunt began in earnest.  I walked around turning on lights.  I didn't want to wake up Mom, so I didn't call out to him.  What would I call him, anyway?  Don't think he would respond to Maher-shal-al-hashbaz.  I got to the den and turned a light on there.  Then I just stood behind the couch waiting.  Wasn't long before the little stinker pranced happily out from under the Christmas tree.  I called him, "Hey you," and he came right over and jumped up on the couch.  I gathered him up and returned him to the dog bed and reinforced the barricade once again.     Thinking that was that, I went back to bed.  But that wasn't that as far as he was concerned.  Off and on for the entire night he barked.  I was surprised Heidi didn't get upset and tell him off.  It was a long night.  I'm glad we have had some practice staying up late with grandkids.     As soon as the vet opened we called.  Interestingly, she said she had just hung up with a guy who lost his Yorkey last night.  She said, You must have Jake."  Sure enough the numbers on his rabies tag were matched up.  She took our phone number and gave it to the Human in charge of the dog.  Not long after Jeff called and thanked us for rescuing his little friend.  Really enjoyed meeting Jeff, too.  He lives right down the street from us.  We have met him a time or two before, but it was great to have another touch point in developing a relationship with him.                                                                                                                        So we grabbed Jake and set off on the adventure's end.  Jeff was glad to have his friend back.      Hebrews 13:1-2 says, "Keep on loving each other as brothers. Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it."   Father, thank you for our little visitor last night.  Watch over his human, too.  Amen.