Yesterday morning, my next door neighbor asked me if I would walk his dog a couple of times a day for the rest of the week. He offered to pay me for my trouble and I agreed. Around four in the afternoon, I paid a visit to Winston the Chihuahua. As soon as I walked into the apartment, he stood up on the bed and stared at me. Within seconds, he was shivering with fear at the sight of a strange mustachioed man in Nike running gear. I must tell you that my next door neighbor is actually dogsitting Winston, a rescue, for a few weeks as a favor to his friend. So I was given the task of dogsitting for the dogsitter. After talking to Winston in calming tones and gently approaching him to pet his head, he finally gave in and let me put the leash on him for a walk. Though he was still shivering as I attached the leash to his collar.
I took Winston for a non-eventful walk up and down the block, making sure he urinated and picking up his feces in a plastic bag. As we stepped back into my neighbor's apartment, I bent down to take the leash off as I closed the front door behind me. In a split second, Winston turned and bolted for the crack in the door. I caught him with my leg, smooshing him against the door jamb... but he managed to wriggle away and take off down the stairs leading to the street. I yelled for him to stop, then chased him down to street level. Once he hit the sidewalk, he kicked it into fifth gear and made a run for the border. I ran after him, yelling his name repeatedly, but he had no intention of stopping. On tired legs from having just completed a six-mile run hours before, I sprinted for as long as I could, but was no match for his four little legs and low center of gravity. A guy on a motorcycle saw what was going on and tried to cut him off, but Winston craftily eluded him as well. Halfway down the block, I was losing a visual on Winston, until eventually he was completely out of sight. My heart sank. Exhausted and panting, I slowed down to a speed-walk in the general direction I last saw him. I asked everyone I encountered along the way if they had seen a little black and brown Chihuahua. If I had time to hire a sketch artist, he would've drawn something like this:
No one had seen the dog. I started to panic as I neared Sunset Boulevard, thinking it was possible he hit the busy intersection and god knows what happened. I crossed Sunset and walked up a block or two, but soon realized I was looking for a miniscule Chihuahua in a giant city. How could this have happened? Am I the worst dogsitter in the world? What kind of horrible person am I to have lost someone else's dog? Riddled with guilt and sweating profusely, I quickly jogged back to the apartment to see if the dog had returned. No such luck. I grabbed my cell phone and placed a call to my next door neighbor. I left a message that I'm absolutely sure freaked him out when he heard it because of the utter panic in my voice. Disaster for me. Disaster for him. I roamed the neighborhood for an hour or so, keeping my eyes peeled for Winston, calling his name, asking everyone I passed if they saw him. Nothing. As if he had vanished. It felt like death.
Faced with that kind of loss, I turned to the only source I could... God. I asked for help in guiding me back to that shivering little shit. I tried to have faith that it would happen. I talked to my next door neighbor on the phone, and although he was spooked, he seemed to remain relatively calm for me. Nearly defeated, I headed back to the apartment one more time to see if Winston had come home. On the way back, I experienced one of the greatest moments of relief in my life. I caught a glimpse of Winston playing in a neighbor's backyard with two other dogs. "Winston!" A guy popped around the corner and said he had seen me walking by a couple of times but didn't realize I was looking for the dog. I thanked him profusely as he handed me the tiny terror. Just as the guy placed Winston in my arms, my cell phone rang. It was my next door neighbor. I answered the call and immediately said, "I got him." Total relief on both ends of the phone. We laughed about it for a minute and my neighbor told me not to worry about a thing. "It's over", I said. "After all that, I'm holding him in my arms." I carried Winston back into my neighbor's apartment, shut the door tightly behind me, scolded the disobedient devil dog until he started shivering again, then went home. I immediately hopped into the shower and scrubbed off the guilt, tension, worry, and stress. I was off the hook, thank God.
I sincerely doubt I'll ever eat Taco Bell again.
