THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, November 4, 1994 TAG: 9411040701
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL
LENGTH: Medium: 57 lines
Every two months or so Boomer, the chocolate Lab, runs away.
And I follow, best I can.
We live on what is roughly a fat peninsula and, usually but not always, he cuts through back yards to ramble north along the river bank about a half mile shy of the busy boulevard.
Three lanes, lined with homes, lead back to the river bank. One way to head off the Lab, if he doesn't have too much of a start, is to explore each of the three long lanes, and, if they are Labless, park by the bridge just beyond the third lane. And wait.
As if at a deer stand.
In an hour or so, if luck holds, the Lab comes trotting out of the third lane and onto the road.
He is astonished to find me sitting in the convertible by the bridge, as if he didn't credit me with sense to lie in wait along his route.
No point in reproving a male Lab for what nature intended him to do, wander. So I summon him to the open car door, he jumps in, and home we go.
There his beloved mistress would give him a thorough scolding at which he would slink to the floor, turn on his back, and, paws up, wait until her wrath subsided and then, forgiven, arise to kiss her hand and, at a leap, her face.
If luck doesn't hold and the Lab fails to come out of his hole, I keep driving slowly around the neighborhood, trying to think like a Lab.
The night is never so devoid of life as it is when you are searching for a missing dog. It is as if the whole world is emptied of dogs.
And, meanwhile, the scan'nel could be lying 50 feet away under a bush, watching, bemused.
So finally, before dawn, I give up, leave the front door open, and lie down on the floor by the latched screen door to greet the scamp if he does return on his rounds.
I awaken in the early light to see him peering through the screen, amazed to find me lying on the floor in his spot.
He once told his friend Rommel, the noble husky-collie two doors down, ``I've got a master who thinks he's canine.''
So Thursday, I went to the house midday to give Boomer a run. A couple from Richmond dropped by at the front door to say hello, and, after they had departed, I left for work by the side front door.
Halfway downtown I couldn't remember shutting the side front door, so I wheeled around, went back, and, sure enough, it was open and the screen door was unlatched. Boomer, it seemed, was on the run.
I waited by the bridge. No Lab. Spent two hours, in vain, checking his haunts. Came home to phone in a report of a missing brown Lab with a blue collar, started to go out the side front door to pick up the chase, but, glancing toward the front door two rooms away, saw through the double glass doors the brown Lab, capering in a frenzy to catch my notice.
There's just no knowing what a human will do next. by CNB