Pet dramas

 
I may have mentioned it in the past: my wife loves dogs. (I do not love dogs. I love my wife, so I live with dogs. But I do not love dogs.)

Recently, she had owned two separate Schnausers: call them Gordie and Johann. We have a fenced yard, but practically every dog has found some way out, and every time we locate the latest escape-hatch and seal it, they just begin the process of seeking (or creating) another.

Close to a year ago, Gordie got out and didn’t come back. Susan was sure he had died, because the weather was below freezing; I assured her someone had picked him up, said, “Hey, a purebred,” and kept him. She was unconvinced, and inconsolable. A few months after that, our kids got another Schnauser — Johann — and of course he wound up in our care. Then maybe three months ago, Johann too got out and didn’t come back.

I suggested to Susan, “Maybe you shouldn’t get any more Schnausers. Our luck with them isn’t too good.” She did not appreciate the sentiment.

Last week, she called me from work, excited: “I just got a call from a vet in Smallburg —” (not the actual name, of course) “— and they’ve found Johann!” They’d traced her via the microchip implanted in the animal, though it took them awhile; so, I dutifully went and picked up Johann. Susan was ecstatic to see him, but kept calling him ‘Gordie’. And then feeling bad about it, because she really missed Gordie, who had been ‘her’ dog.

Today … today … I got a call from someone living at the other edge of our current hometown (Tinyburg). They’d found a Schnauser and, not knowing how else to locate the owner, took him by their vet, who scanned for and found a chip. And identified the dog.

As Johann.

I went to check on it, though I couldn’t figure out how in the world two different dogs with two different microchips could have been identified as the same animal. When I was shown the imposter, I called Susan by cell and asked, “Honey? Did Johann have cropped ears?”

No, he didn’t.

We’d had Gordie at home for about a week. Calling him by the wrong name. (Was it subconscious recognition on Susan’s part?) Turns out, Gordie hadn’t been identified as Johann; Susan had received the call, and since Gordie had been gone for so long, she had assumed the new-found Schnauser must be the most recently missing one.

So now we have both of them back. They’d never met before, and regard one another with some wariness. But they’re both back.

And arrived, with no apparent connection in cause, within a week of each other.

Even the small things in my life seem to insist on having a weird twist.