Ozzy, revisited

It finally occurred to me on one of my catch-and-return trips with Ozzy to snap the old boy’s pic. So, meet Ozzy:

If you missed the original story (in which I misspelled his name, but I’ve now seen his collar tag enough times to have corrected that error forever), here it is: The Ozzie Story.

Since then, I’ve found and returned Ozzy so many times that I’ve lost count. The worst incident, though, was a total fluke. It was the middle of the day, and I decided I had to procrastinate run to the grocery store. I went outside, got in the car, then realized that I forgot to get the mail. Who knows how my brain was working that day, but it was luck. So, I got out of the car, got the  mail, took it inside, got back in the car, and left for the store. And wouldn’t you know the exact second I drove past the neighborhood and onto the highway, there was Ozzy running down the side of the highway. Elderly, blind Ozzy. I pulled over, called him, picked him up, and drove him home.

For a long while, he continued to appear in our backyard. Miraculously, it never happened when the boys were out. I’d put the boys in the room above the garage, leash up Ozzy, and walk him home.

His people are truly astounded and can’t figure out how he keeps getting out. The last time Ozzy showed up in the yard, Cooper notified me of his presence, and I ran Ozzy right home. The father came to the door, and he said he just couldn’t figure it out. He said he spent the weekend before plugging up any holes in their fence. This is an elderly, blind dog! I suggested he line the fence with chicken wire. We chatted containment for a minute, then I walked home.

It’s a two HOUSE walk. Our backyards touch in the corner, it’s that close.

Reaching my house, I heard a telltale jingle in the backyard. I looked over the fence, and YEP! There was Ozzy. I had JUST returned him! So, back he went. And then we spent the evening barricading our side of the fence with whatever materials we could find in the garage.

Classy, right?

(Interestingly, compare the foliage in the above pic to the foliage in the original Ozzy story… I wonder if those two freezes killed all the plantains?)

And then yesterday, we found out: Our landlord has, in fact, sold our house. My very first thought (I mean, after the cursing, of course) wasn’t what are we going to do, where are we going to go, how are we going to get all this crap packed up again? Nope. My first thought was:

Who’s going to watch out for poor Ozzy?

(Final piece of this story, and a tad confessional about being a sucky Lucas guardian: See that metal window frame thing that’s blocking the big hole on the bottom? Yesterday, Lucas got fed up with Ozzy and – yep. – their new puppy, JP. He lunged and snarled and snapped at them through the grate… slicing the crap out of his snout, cutting his eye, and pulling a chunk off the tip of his nose. Why we didn’t see that coming is beyond me. So sorry, Lucas.)