Found!

No updates yesterday because I was either busy or tired (and catching up on sleep). The pug kept me up for much of the night, indirectly, because the chihuahuas decided they had to go and check up on him every other hour or so. Everytime they jumped back onto the bed there was much settling in to be done – in Peppi’s case, organising and reorganising of blankets and licking of self and humans. All of this kept me up.

The pug himself was quite good during the night.

All this changed in the morning when he decided that staying outdoors was no longer acceptable, and he started hurling himself against the screen door. I had to relent and let him in rather than let him break the door.

Apart from peeing against a table leg once he came inside, he was very well-behaved and placid. Paco decided that he was going to maintain his ownership of my lap whenever I sat down, and growled and snapped at pug everytime he came near me. The pug wanted to sit in my lap too, which confirmed for me that he was a well-loved (and well-fed) dog whose owner would be very anxious at his disappearance.

As soon as it was a reasonable hour, I called the council and left a message with the ranger. Then I called a local vet – and was told that yes, someone had reported their black pug missing last night. I called immediately and left a message.

In the meantime M gave the dogs some treats. Paco and Peppi get treats every morning so they were expecting this – and, amusingly, so was the black pug. He had in fact been begging all morning, looking mournful and doing little prances around me. (I chose to ignore this as I didn’t want to disrupt the chis’ routine any more than it was, also I couldn’t move easily as I had two chihuahuas sitting on me at all times.) When pug got his treat(s) he was very pleased indeed, although the chicken stick and Scooby Snack biscuit didn’t last very long at all in his cavernous mouth. The picture below shows how the pug knew full well where the pantry cupboard was!

By the time the dogs had eaten their treats, the pug’s owner turned up. He was almost in tears and overjoyed to see Rumba (for that was the pug’s name). He said he’d spent all night calling around the vets and friends and had just made up 200 fliers asking for people to look out for his lost pug. Apparently some visitors had left a door open and that was how Rumba got out. Lucky for him he met a man with a pizza!