The Day Pirate Dog Went to Jail

A few months before Surfer Pirate and I started dating, I had just put my sweet, 9 year old German Shepherd to sleep. I'd had him since he was a puppy. It was really hard, but he was sick, and it was time.

Plus, I was a single mom with a 3 year old and 4 cats. I had my hands full enough.


When Surfer Pirate and were newly dating, he suggested that I get another dog. It took a while to talk me into it, but I realized I had really enjoyed the security I felt having a big dog around to protect the house.

So one day, I went to the animal shelter. I looked around at several dogs, and I fell in love.


...with another German Shepherd.


This one was a female. A tiny little puppy.

...and she was being treated for mange...


*my mother warned me divorce makes you temporarily insane.


I told Surfer Pirate about this little puppy, and he had the sense to talk me out of it. I was working full time, not exactly the best time to try to train a puppy. And did I REALLY want to take on a sick dog with all the other things I had going on in my life?

So this time, the three of us went to the animal shelter together, to look for an ADULT dog. I showed Surfer Pirate the other dogs I'd been looking at. He kept going back to this yellow lab with a really sweet personality. He walked up to the dog, pointed at him, said "Sit", and the dog sat! "That's the one" he said.

It made me laugh.

So we took the happy guy home.


Less than 2 weeks later, I got a phone call at work.

"This is so-and-so from the animal shelter. Your dog was picked up by Animal Control wandering the street. We need you to come pick him up."

That afternoon, I went down to the animal shelter (aka: The Pound). The lady at the desk told me to go back to the kennels, find my dog, pick up the clipboard on the door of his kennel and bring it up to her.

I saw him before he saw me.

He looked so terribly sad and dejected.

I could tell he couldn't figure out what on earth he'd done to get locked up again.

I walked up to him. "Hey Pirate Dog. Do you want to go home?"

He grinned from ear to ear and started to jump up and down! He was SO excited to see me! "Mom!! You're here, you're here!! I thought I'd never see you again!!!" his happy little face seemed to say.

Then, I grabbed the clipboard, told him I'd had to take this to the front.

As soon as I walked away, he started to HOWL!! "MOM! Where are you going??? Don't you love me?? DON'T LEAVE ME HERE!!!"

I laughed to myself as I walked to the front. I was still laughing when I paid the $35 bail fine to get him out. The lady said she would bring him out to me.

Next thing I knew, he came racing out to me, dragging the poor woman behind her like she was a little kid!


It was far from the last time he got out of the yard and ran away. Thankfully, that was the only time he got picked up by Animal Control. Usually, a neighbor would find him and call me. I found out later that labs are notorious for running. And we also found out later that a woman a couple blocks away from us had two female labs, and that's where he had been going.

He was a character, and he sure made life interesting. :)