Flower on the run

So, today has been eventful. Forget the doggies in the morning (ok, let's not forget Chase the Lab who loves attention and giving people head hugs and Ozzie the Labradoodle who doesn't really like small kiddies), the shopping, the movie watching (Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief) amongst teeny boppers; forget the buying of new shoes in accordance with Chinese tradition, the getting lost, the Mexican food place for dinner that made us wait waaaaaaaay too long for the food; forget it all.

Oh yeah, today's eventfulness came at the very end in the form of naughty puppeh called Flower. Who got loose from her home, ran around and overall evaded our attempts to catch a hold of her to return to her owner.

See, we had just finished dinner with Kate, Mic's friend, and had come back form a brief stop at Safeway. We were both wiped out, tired and looking forward to crashing for the day. Mic had just stopped me at the corner of my street, I had grabbed my stuff, I was making last minute arrangements with her about tomorrow when it happened--I heard doggy tags clinking and then the sound of someone calling out a doggy's name. Look up, turn right, see a doggy silhouette running towards me in the headlights of an oncoming car and I basically stopped talking abruptly, shoved my stuff onto the sidewalk and made an attempt to coax the dog towards me.

It worked for all of two seconds before Flower decided to continue onwards.... in the middle of the road. Michelle had jumped out of the car by then when Flower did a Koko on us and ran into the middle of oncoming traffic. I screamed, Michelle continued towards the dog, the dog continued on, I dashed back to the car for doggy treats we had gotten earlier with shelter dogs in mind and I basically lost sight of both Michelle and the dog. I ran on, made a call, found the owner jogging towards me, went onwards, made another call, lost sight of the dog, found the dog and eventually, after much maneuvering and coaxing and running out into the middle of the road to make sure cars didn't run the dog over, we managed to grab it.

May I just say, as Michelle will definitely attest to, running in San Francisco after a dog is hard, especially considering the amount of fucking hills in the area, that are fucking steep, and fucking hard to run up. God that dog sure ended our night with a bang. Beverly, the owner, later told us that she had just gotten flower that very day when she managed to squeeze under the gate. She, in the manner of all pet owners who love their pets, had run out with a leash without even putting on proper shoes (she was in her house slippers) and apparently she had run around several blocks several times. Which explained why Flower didn't respond very well when she was calling out to it.

Gah, damn dog.

It's a good thing she's ok. And really, people here really love their animals. Beverly offered us a reward for helping her catch her dog. Obviously we passed up on that insistently, but it just goes to show, people here sure love their animals.

Hmm, maybe I'll go visit Flower again some day and the two other doggies too. Great way to make friends eh?