We lost our dog the other morning. My wife thought the boy was watching him and he thought she was watching him . . . it turns out no one was watching him, so he ran out the front door and disappeared.
We posted flyers around the neighborhood offering a reward. A neighbor girl, about 6 years old, told us the dog followed her and her brother to school. She rides a scooter and her brother rides a bike, so the dog probably thought it was a great new chasing game.
The three of them went down the street, around the corner, down another street, across Irvine Center Drive, and the dog at that point detoured into a shopping plaza. By inquiring store to store, we found out that he walked into 24-Hour Fitness, where a member took him home.
Long story short, we were able to get the dog back and we gave the girl the reward money, which she used to buy a new bike.
One of her friends saw the bike and was overheard to say, “I wish I could find a dog.”
That gives me an idea: Every week or two, we’ll turn the dog loose and people will compete to find him and claim a reward. Competitors must pay an entry fee. We’ll pay the reward from the fees collected and keep the difference.
Don’t let this get around, but sometimes we might announce that the dog is loose when he really isn’t, let people search for a few days, then say that he came home by himself.
In that case, of course, everyone loses and no reward is paid . . .