Lost & Found

Last night, a stray dachshund followed me home from taking Callie out for her evening walk. They were playing together, so Peter took her back to the corner where she first met up with us alone to see if she would wander home. She followed him home too. Since she didn't have a collar, and she and Callie had been getting along, and when Peter took her out she spent lots of time walking in the middle of the road (bad idea for a small black dog at night) we decided to keep her for the night and take her to the vet in the morning to see if she had a microchip.

Callie DID NOT like her once she came into the house. We knew Callie was territorial about food, and we learned that she is also territorial about her house and her people. She spent lots of time growling at the poor little dachshund (actually, the dachshund was bigger than Callie and weighed a lot more) and holding her head down to the ground so she would know that Callie is the alpha dog at our house. Whenever Callie would push her head down, the dachshund would just wag her tail and lick Callie's face. It was sad to watch, so we tried separating them for the night. The dachshund cried and cried until we put her back with Callie. We thought it was weird that she wanted to be with Callie when Callie wasn't being nice to her, but we wanted to sleep so we just left them together. It wasn't the most restful night, because several times in the night Callie felt the need to growl and put the dachshund back in her place.

In the morning, they were both wagging their tails and playing nicely and you would never know that they hadn't been getting along the night before. Peter took the dachshund to the vet, and fortunately she had a microchip so they were able to get her back to her family.

I'm glad we were able to help the stray dog, but it turned out to be a lot more challenging than we thought it would be when we decided to bring her home. It has been nice to have a quiet house this evening.