Third dog

Inspired by my 13.1 miles yesterday morning, Mike decided to go for a short run around the neighborhood before lunch.  Well, it was more him going for a run in the attempts to get his sinuses to open up and drain all the snot out of his head more so than him being inspired by me, but whatever.
Anyway, mid run, he gets a running buddy in the form of this guy:

HI!!!! I'm a cute and friendly buddy without a collar!

The dog has no collar and he's pretty wet, so Mike thinks he was probably outside durring the storm.  Well, this dog is friendly and has no fear, so he follows Mike home, all the way up to our front door, and wants to come inside.  However, our dogs have been posted at the front window ever since Mike took off for his jog, whining in wait for the moment Mike comes back.  So when thier daddy does come back (oh thank god! they must think) they also see this new guy tagging along and they are not about to let that go unnoticed.  Also along the run Mike got a few of the neighborhood kids following him ala pide pipper style, but without the creepy flute and kidnapping thing.  The kids want to help with the dog, so they hold him on our front porch while Mike squeezes himself through our front door so he can grab Bailey's harness and leash.

This dog had no id and none of us have any inclination to who's dog this is.  He's obviously someone's, because he's friendly and trained, but there's no one really around to ask or looking for him.  The best we can do in the moment is call animal conrol so he goes someplace safe for a little bit.  I hop on the trusty interwebs and get the phone number for our county's shelter, but since it was 20 minutes until they closed, and it was a weekend, they weren't going to do anything. Seriously.  The police couldn't do anything either since taking a dog is considered a felony.  Mike hangs up the phone and tells me the two options: let the dog go and leave it to wander around, or keep him until monday morning and drop him off at the shelter ourselves.

We exchange a look and we both know we can't just let this guy go.  Plus we have have 5 kids on our front porch looking to us adults to fix the situation.  So,we make a plan. Fortunatly Bailey has 2 harnesses and 2 crates, so the stranger dog can be put in the bigger of Bailey's crate and stay for the weekend.  However, we only have 2 leashes at the moment, and we have to at least introduce all 3 dogs to each other before we can even think about bringing him in our/the girls' house.

Mike holds the stranger dog in the harness while I run back inside to harness and leash the girls.  I let the girls smell the other dog on me before we head outside to meet this guy on sidewalk to make it feel less territorial.  It went ok, and once they've met, I take the girls back inside and we play some muscial crates.  We leash stranger dog and lead him into the house, and with a little coaxing, he goes into Bailey's crate.  For the moment all 3 of them are crated in our dining room, and being (somewhat) quiet.  Phew!

We decide that we'll have to take all 3 of them for a walk later so they can get used to each other.  But we still only have 2 leashes.  So Mike runs out to wallmart and gets a spare, and we eventually get all 3 dogs on a walk, with me handeling the girls and Mike the stranger dog.  And then the best thing possible happened: the owner of the dog was walking around the neighbor hood looking for him!  Buddy (yep, stranger dog's name) bolts over to his owner and we hand him off.  They had been giving him a bath before and he had sliped away while they were in thier backyard.  That's why he was all wet and didn't have a collar.  The owner thanks us for finding him and taking care of him, and we find out where buddy lives just in case he ever escapes again.  We continue on our walk, Buddy returns home, and Mike and I are 200% sure that even though Buddy is really friendly and sweet, we will never ever get a 3rd dog!