jonjarrold.co.uk

From time to time, my life is fairly interesting. Sometimes I’m falling off my skateboard. Sometimes I’m being hit by a car. Once I hit someone on the head with a mallet. More recently I injured a good friend of mine when a piggy back when horribly wrong. Sure, a lot of the time I’m simply waking up, going to work, and coming home again about eight hours later. This is often uneventful. Today it was not.

Today, at about 18:30 I left the office to come home. I was skateboarding as usual. Everything was going pretty much to plan until I got to the top of Park Road. It was here that I saw a little dog. He (who would later turn out to be she) was wondering around on his own without any form of owner. No older dog looking out for it, or human to keep it safe. The little dog walked about three or four paces ahead of me up Harlaxton Drive. He sniffed the trees and the walls along the sides of the pavement. Occasionally he would stop, turn around, run back down the road, then turn around and come back up it again. He just didn’t seem to know where to go. After a while, as he neared the busy Derby Road, I figured it was time to ask the little dog if he was ok and where his owner was. I bent down and quietly waited to see if he’d come and say hello. He did. He put his paws on my legs and stretched to introduce himself. Then he carried on walking along the pavement. As he seemed intent on going to see the cars I decided to try and call him back and pick him up. He came towards me and stopped. I put my skateboard on the ground and picked him up. He was light. He was soft and a bit shakey, but generally ok. He didn’t bark. he didn’t growl. He didn’t make a sound. He just stayed in my arms. I threw him over my shoulder, picked up my board, and carried him home, explaining to him what I was doing.

On arriving back at my flat, I buzzed my housemate, Polly, to come down with a bowl of water. She opened the door with a bowl of warm water expecting to find me with cuts and bruises from yet another accident caused by my sometimes eventful life. Instead she was greeted with a wagging tail. This little dog liked women. That’s when Polly decided to find out if he was indeed a he. He was not. He was a she. She liked females. That’s not to say she didn’t like me. She knew I was a good guy and always came back to my feet for protection.

We took her upstairs to the flat and put her on the floor in the kitchen. She was well behaved and laid on my red blanket when I put it beside her. She was, more or less, a very good mannered dog. I then had to decide what I was going to do with her now. I couldn’t keep her. I didn’t know where she lived or came from. I made some phone calls and eventually decided to take her to the local police station. They were supposed to have kennels there, but they didn’t. They did have a female police officer though, which the little dog loved. The other police officer told me I’d have to take her to the main police station in the city, but that they couldn’t take her because of some rules and regulations. I would have to get the little dog into the city on my own, only she was getting heavier the the more I carried her. She had no collar and no lead. I had no choice but to keep her in my arms. Plus it was going down well with the ladies that passed by!

I called Jo, thinking that being a dog lover, she’d kindly take me to the police station. She did. At the big police station, the little dog beeped. Not on her own, but when the police lady person scanned her with the chip scanner. This dog was chipped! She had a number. She was no longer an anonymous little dog. Horray! I was asked to carry her downstairs to the kennels, which were dark and spooky. I relluctantly placed the number dog into the dark. She didn’t like it, but I had few other options. Back at the front desk, the numbers translated into a name. Her name was Bella. She had an owner that lived in Sneinton. That’s about two and a half miles from where I found her. They tried the phone number, but got no reply.

I’m now keeping my fingers crossed that she gets to go back home, and that hopefully the police will be decent enough to let me know.