Back to the Bounding Dog

So, about two minutes into our run, a black lab comes running towards us. I instinctively back off as to let him get my friend, and not me. I think I muttered, "Sorry" as if that would have made up for the gnashing of teeth that might have been. But it appeared to be a friendly lab, puppy-ish dog. 

We said things like, "Go away. Go home. Off. Out." The dog would be distracted in a yard,  then EK would whisper, "Come here! Come here!" but both the dog and I could hear that.

We yelled some other exclamations, but we could not loose this persistant pup. This little dance with the dog went on for at least ten minutes. It jumped in our path, not quite tripping us. It licked me. EK threw decoy, "balls" for it, an apple and rock.  EK threw the apple, shouted "Run!" and we sprinted around the corner, but no luck.  We could not shake the dog.

Now, this annoyance generally may not bother some people, but EK and I are not dog people. We were not sharing the love. When we had to turn around and try to find the dogs home, we were not feeling puppy love. 

We finally looked on the tag the dog was wearing, and dear Lucy's tag only had her name and phone number. I had my handy dandy cell phone with me, which some question why I carry it. I called the number on the tag, and the young man answering the phone answered as if he didn't even know he had a dog. He quickly remembered, said something about his brothers, and gave me the address. It was close to where we were, and after some incessant knocking a lady answered the door. She seemed to have had a heads-up call letting her know we were on the way.  She said, "Thank you" a couple of times, but never a "I'm so sorry that my cute, run away dog inconvenienced your run on this blazing, stinking hot, hot, overcast day."