Vigilante Dog Rescue

I did not expect to be abducting a pedigree dog after class.

My mom picked me up in front of the school, said, “We need to make a stop first before we go home,” and went the opposite way of the usual home route. For a moment I hoped we were going to get pizza, or maybe we would make a surprise visit to the bookstore. It turned out my mother was planning on “repossessing” a sixth-month-old puppy. I was too scandalized to say anything.

“These people don’t take care of him,” my mother said angrily as she drove toward our destination. By then we had gone past the borders of our small town and taken a long back road flanked by dense woods. Occasionally a house sped by, half-hidden by trees and underbrush. The area was so remote that the road we traveled on wasn't even paved; it was only gravel and compacted dirt.

“When I gave them that dog, they said they were going to take care of it,” my mom continued. The indignation and determination was in her voice. “All they do is keep that poor dog chained up outside on the lawn all day. That’s not what dogs are meant for. Something is going to happen to him.”

Something was going to be us. The way she explained it to me, we were saving the dog by abducting it--or “taking it back” as my mother put it. The puppy was a miniature breed, a perfect target for not only more nefarious dog-nappers but also a varied list of predatory animals found in rural, midwestern areas. The weather was also brutal in the winter, with heavy rains in the spring. Other, bigger dogs (hounds, retrievers, etc.) often ran freely; in a rural community like ours, there was space for them to roam.

It was not, continued my mother emphatically, and hitting the steering wheel for even more effect, a safe environment for a puppy to be out in. A clueless lap dog who didn’t know anything and would trust just about anyone was a “sitting duck,” as she put it.

“Don’t you mean a sitting dog?” I retorted, trying to bring some levity to the criminal conspiracy I'd become embroiled in.

Mom wasn’t in the mood for wordplay.

“We’re almost there,” she said after a lull of quiet. “I’m going to drive up to the house, grab the dog, and we’re going to take him back into town. There’s a nice lady who wants him and she’ll actually take care of him.”

Despite my many misgivings, I marveled at the calculated chaos of it all. “I can’t believe you’re just taking someone’s dog off their lawn. You're the one who gave him to them.”

“I expected them to take care of him. They aren’t. I told them he could go missing if they kept it outside. And I told them that I would take him back if they mistreated him." Apparently my mother had decided to fulfill both predictions simultaneously.

And, being just a lid, I watched with fascination as the operation went down. My mother carefully sidled the van along the roadside, in front of the one-storey house of her target. The lawn was a bit overgrown but she saw the puppy on its chain leash, which was connected to a metal rod that had been driven into the ground. He had been left alone out in the open, while the owners were who-knows-where. Like a professional on an extraction mission, my mother slipped out of her car seat and rounded the front of the vehicle and quickly crossed the lawn toward the puppy. She had slipped him out of his collar and was carrying him back to the vehicle in seconds. The simple creature didn’t resist but allowed himself to be carried away. Probably he recognized her, as he had lived in our home for several months, but it was still a very direct object lesson that illustrated exactly my mother’s worst fears.

“Hold him.” She held out the puppy with one hand to me, and I grabbed him gently and cradled him. He sat without complaint in my lap as Mom backed the vehicle up and casually but quickly left the scene of the crime. The entire operation from the pull-over to the speedy retreat had taken 30 seconds at most.

“He’s going to a good home,” my mother assured me as we drove back into town. “A very nice, older lady has been wanting a dog like him. I only wish I’d known before I gave him away to those people.”

Back in town, we parked in the driveway of a home I had been to before, and my mother, all smiles, took the puppy and carried him to the lady who joyfully came out of the house. The lady hugged the puppy close to her chest and the two of them chatted while I watched from the passenger side seat. Probably, the woman had no idea that her sweet little puppy was now technically “hot.”

That was my first and last time acting as an accessory to a theft. I hadn't enjoyed the experience.

On the other hand, I never worried about the police or any legal repercussions. Assuming the dog was worth less than 500, and he likely was since he had no papers, my mother could only have been charged with something like a class A misdemeanor at the worst for the theft, and the brief trespassing was only a misdemeanor charge as well. Technically that could still equate to jail time, and/or a hefty fine, but I had a suspicion that even if somehow my mother was found out, likely no serious police related consequences would ensue.

All my mother would have had to do would be to show everyone how cute the puppy was, and describe that chain and rod driven into the ground, and they would have taken her side immediately. Very few people are anti-puppy, after all.

“Your Honor,” I could see her saying, “who could resist that sad little face?”