stray dog

Today there was a fat-ass labrador wandering across the road in the neighborhood that I drive through on my way home. I pulled my car over and got out and said "Come here." He smiled and listened. He licked my hand, not really shy or excited, blind in his left eye, no tag on his collar, eager to get back to sniffing the grass.

I looked at the houses in the neighborhood. I shrugged and decided to start ringing doorbells. I left my car on the side of the road, running, and made my way up the sidewalk toward the first house I saw and turned and the dog was standing in the road, looking at me. I started towards it, and I shouted, "Get the hell out of the road. The fuck is wrong with you?" He bumbled up onto to the sidewalk, keeping his head cocked, so he could see me with his good eye.

I grabbed him by the collar, intent on taking him to each house with me, but a hundred pound dog doesn't go where a hundred pound dog doesn't want to go, and he had grass to sniff. He licked my hands a couple more times, saying, "Hey, man, it's cool. Let me do my thing." I watched him trot along the grass between the sidewalk and the road, sniffing, maybe going home, and I got back in my car and drove away.