Well, turns out three-ear is not only a female, but a mommy as well. Saw her engorged dinners while she was munching sunflower seeds the other day. Monkey-time Randy informs me that the third ear is a surveillance implant of the Homeland Security Dept. That explains why she's eyeballing me all the time.

Typing of animals, (I'm not speaking so I can't write that can I?) I'm listening to the commentary from a Brit named Cowie on the Alain Resnais film Hiroshima Mon Amour (which is worth seeing now, I'd say), Saturday around noon, when I see a black form flash by on my peripheral vision. I turn to look out the window to see Elvis, my big black Lab, wandering through the front yard, sniffing and such. I immediate pause the film and pop out onto the front porch to catch Elv in the side yard by the juniper trees. "Elvis, Come inside," says I, to which the good ol' boy dutifully lifts his head, wags and then runs over and up the steps and into the house, where Peachy greets him.

Exasperated, I stay outside and head around the north side of the house expecting to find the gate wide open. However, it's closed. Now, I'm stumped, cuz I can't figure out how he got out. I go through the gate and start walking the perimeter of the fence expecting to find it disturbed where he climbed it. Mind you, I have waged a 4- or 5-year campaign to keep first Peachy and now Elv in the yard--First filling in holes and building stone and wood barricades, then trying an invisible fence and finally resorting to electrification, which for the most part has worked well.

Still, it hasn't been 100 percent successful, and the breaches are harder and harder to anticipate, so I was searching with some annoyance for the way out when I heard dog commotion behind me. I turned and saw Peachy's and not one, but two black labs. I said something out loud, like "huh?" or "What the..." And that brought the pack of them to me. Upon further review, it became clear that the 2nd lab wasn't Elvis, aside from the fact that Elvis was standing next to him. Elvis has a grey muzzle and this pup's was coal black. So I called the boy over to me and took off his collar, which was exceedingly similar to Elvis'. It had two tags on it just like Elvis but the name tag was a chrome bone where Elvis' is a blue bone. Turns out he lives in the 5100 block of Ave. G and his name was Coal P. Smith. As I went into the house to call his human, the similarities in the dogs struck me as amazing. Coal was about 90 percent the size of Elv, but he walked and held his head almost the exact same way. I called Coal in and made my dogs wait outside.

This was the exchange with Coal's human:

Hello
Hello there!
You have my dog don't you?
I sure do.
Where are you?
(I give the address).
I'll be there in a minute. Thanks.


That was it. ;-)

So I'm waiting with him as he sniffs out the entire place occasionally brushing by me. When I put my hand down, he comes to it, in an eerily similar manner to that of my big boy. Again. I am in a bit of awe of the weirdness of the sitch.

The wind blows the front door slightly open and Coal takes the opportunity to nose it fully open and push out through the screen door. I follow him and when he gets 20 feet away ask him to come, which, amazingly, he does. He waits on the porch with me for a minute until he recognizes the engine of his human and bolts down to the curb.

A lady pulls up in an Explorer and Coal circles it. She gets out and greets the boy and then thanks me. I tell her the story, as it strikes me as a good one. She enjoys it or convincingly pretend to and then opens the back door for Coal to climb into. He climbs up but hesitates with the hind legs. She explains that for some reason his hip dysplasia makes it hard for him to get into the car but that he jumps the fence no problem. I tell me my boy has atrophied hind legs too but after all he's 11 years old. She says, "So is Coal!

Weird man.