Lost dog...

Today when we pulled into the driveway I saw a pair of black animal legs out of the corner of my eye.  I thought it was a black cat that pokes around our yard every so often.  I parked the car and Colter jumped out of the van, one second later he screamed: "there is a really big dog in our yard!"  He ran around the back of the van and opened the other door to escape.  The dog followed right on Colter's heels and jumped in the van.  Colter scrambled through the other open door and into the house.  Adell and I were left with a panting, drooling, dog who had made himself at home in our van.  I had Adell get a bowl of water, which the dog lapped up lickety-split.  

We wrangled the dog into the backyard and I checked the dog's collar.  Thankfully, there was a phone number on his tag.  The owner had to come from San Francisco so we had a dog for about an hour and a half.  Adell was in heaven!  She wants a dog so badly!  She fed the dog some peanut butter and chicken nuggets.  I had to run to the high school to pick up a kid.  We didn't have any rope to tie the dog up and our fence is still in pieces.  More thanks, the dog stayed put in the backyard!  

This would have been a thing that put me over the edge for the whole day.  I would have been stressed and wrecked emotionally.  But I managed to think my way through it.  I was able to adjust my thinking to: "I want to be a good neighbor who helps keep my neighborhood safe.  It's a pain in the butt...but it is what I want to do. "  It made me feel so much better to acknowledge the good reasons I was getting caught up with this dog, rather than focus on the stress it added to my life for an hour or so.

The owner arrived and took her happy dog home.  All was well.