Day-Day

Day-Day is a big neighborhood dog. He looks like a blond German shepherd with long hair. He runs free, walks by our yard, visits our dog - he has a kind 'face', never barks, never runs. I talked to him a couple weeks ago explaining about our dogs.

I met him one day when I took one of my co-Committee members home. I asked if that was her dog. She said yes, his name is Day-Day, 10 years old, and asked if he bothered us. I told her no, he came to visit and was very nice.

Last night I had my stepper situated just right where I could watch the Miami Heat get beat and where I could look out the front window. Not only did I see Dwayne Wade get injured but I also saw a bunch of dogs and a little kid walk by our front fence. There are usually no people who walk there - just dogs, since it is just a weedy path. There was a little kid, maybe 3 or 4, 2 little puppies, a medium sized dog, and - Day-Day! It was raining and almost dark so I was a little concerned about the little person. I watched as she walked down the path with the dogs, maybe going to the neighbor's house. The child sat down on the path between the neighbor's house and ours. Since I recognized Day-Day, I called her house.

Sure enough, my acquaintance was gone, but her daughter said she was missing her daughter. I asked what her daughter's name was and told her I would start walking her home as her mother walked over for her. She was about a 1/4 mile from home.

I started down the road and called out her name. She stopped, as did all her dogs. I told her my name and that I knew her Grandma and mentioned her by name, showed her where I live, and that I had just talked to her mother and her mom wanted me to walk her home. She was crying and didn't want to go with me. Day-Day was glad to see me, as were the puppies, so I asked her if those were her puppies and told her I knew Day-Day. She pointed to the neighbor's house, so I told her that wasn't her house, that her house was back the other way.

I could see her mother coming so I showed her and asked her if I could walk her over to her mother, but she would have none of it! Probably the only things not scarey about me was that I had on my Cookie Monster sweat shirt, which she kept looking at.

When her mom arrived, I told her she trained her well, she wasn't about to go with a stranger! Mom said she had sent the little girl out to feed the dogs while she went to wash clothes. When she came back, the daughter was gone. She went looking for her in the other direction. Grandma called today to thank me for taking care of her grand-daughter and for recognizing Day-Day.

It was a strong reminder of something that happened to me 60 some years ago. In fact, it was about this time of the year and I must have been about the same age. Our family was out root digging. The roots grow where there is lots of sagebruch. Our dog's name was Rover. He was a black and white collie-looking dog. He lived for almost 20 years! Anyway, I got lost - following Rover - probably what this little girl was doing, following Day-Day. I was so scared I was crying and going wherever he went. I finally found my parents and family. They didn't know I was lost until they saw I was crying because they could see Rover's tail and the top of my head so they knew where I was - but I didn't!