The Almost Third Dog

(Yes, there’s a theme this week.)

I wish I had taken a picture of Keegan. He was a beautiful, 100+lb GSD, Malmute, wolf mix, and he lived with us for a long weekend.

We met Keegan in the parking lot of a Fred Meyer store. When we walked in, he was jumped up on someone’s SUV, getting petted by those inside, so we figured he belonged to them and they were just letting him out of the car for a minute. But when we came out of the store, he was still there, this time saying hi to some other kids.

We went back in to the store to ask them to call animal control. They already had, but due to the terrible roads and now late hour, no one was going to make it. There was no way we could allow the dog to spend the night outside in those cold temperatures with no food and no water. So, back into the store to buy dog treats.

Convincing Keegan to get into the car was difficult. Luckily, he loved children and there was a family there who was willing to help us. One of their kids got in the back seat of our car, called the dog and held a treat. Once the dog was in the car, the kid got out the other side and presto.

While we were going through this process, a couple walked by and mentioned that they recognized the dog, and described to us where they believed he lived. With Keegan in the car, we drove to where the house the couple had told us about, but the house was dark and the entire property was surrounded by a locked fence, so we couldn’t even get to the door to knock. Keegan came home with us.

We were a little nervous about introducing Keegan to our dogs. He was almost twice as big as them, and an un-fixed male. But leaving him in the attached garage with our dogs in the house just upset them all, so in he came.

Moree instantly said “I’m the boss” and Keegan said “Ok” and then proceeded to ignore Moree entirely. He attached (a little too firmly) to Smokey. As we tried to go to bed that night, our double bed was like a jigsaw puzzle, trying to fit the two of us and the three dogs (50, 60 & 100lbs) all on the mattress.

Unfortunately, Keegan wanted to be up, and he wanted to play with Smokey. We tried shutting them out of the room so we could sleep, but Smokey really wanted to be with us. At one point, we realized the Keegan really needed to go potty, but he wouldn’t stay outside on his own. We ended up having to take Smokey in the back on leash (because Smokey really wanted to be in bed asleep) to get Keegan to go out. And he still tried to play with Smokey. It wasn’t until Smokey snapped at him that Keegan finally did his business and was able to calm down.

Luckily, the next day was Saturday.

We called the humane society to ask them to list Keegan in their “found dog” book, with our contact information. We put up fliers around the shopping center where we found him, and went back to the house the one couple had told us about and left a flier in the mailbox.

Slowly, Keegan was adapting to our schedule, though he still ignored Moree, which drove Moree crazy. We brought him home on a Friday night, and did not go to work on Monday, due to the road conditions.

On Tuesday, we got a phone call. Keegan’s owner worked nights about 50 miles from where he lived, and due to the bad roads had been stuck at work all weekend. When he got home to find Keegan gone, he was quite upset, wondering what he was going to tell his kids. But on Tuesday, when we thought to go get the mail, he found our flier and gave us a relieved call. He took Tuesday night off work so that he could come pick Keegan up when we got home after 11pm.

I will say, I have rarely seen a dog happier than Keegan was when that man walked through the door. He offered to pay us, to buy us dog food, whatever we wanted. We refused. We did what we would want someone to do for our dogs. And the truth is, despite not wanting a third dog at the time, and certainly not one as big as Keegan, if we had never found his home, he would have had a new one with us.