It's not that I want to be the neighborhood dogcatcher, but from time to time when I drive down the street from my house, I will see a dog running loose, oblivious to traffic.

Last Sunday I was with Mrs. A and as we neared Military Road, two of the beasties ran across the busy street directly towards us.

I pulled over and we got out.

A pretty brown Lab retriever with a collar on and an even prettier Dalmatian with no collar at all.

In the past, we have found that if we can corral a loose dog by opening up a car door, and coaxing it to jump in, it helps to keep the animal from running into traffic and being hit or causing a crash.

Sure enough, when I popped open the rear hatch, brown dog jumped right in, but the Dalmatian skittered around and wouldn't commit.

It seemed like they were friends though and after a couple of minutes of near misses, we finally got them both inside.

Mrs. A has a theory about loose dogs.

"Earthquake," she said, "probably within a few days."

My wife, the amateur quakeologist has determined, along with others in the field, that just before a sizeable earthquake, missing pet ads begin to lump up in newspapers and get posted on fences and telephone poles.

My theory is simpler: somebody has a hole in their fence.

Either way, we now had not one, not two, but four dogs in our car and one of them was going nuts.

I turned around to go home and eased the car back into our fenced yard where we let the menagerie loose.

Dog wrangling routine dictates that while Mrs. A looks for dog tags, I go scribble up a "Found Dog" sign with our phone number.

By the time I got back outside, she had found a dog tag on the Labrador. She called and got a lady on the phone who described the dog and assured us she would be right over to pick it up.

When she arrived, she looked at the two animals and the brown one ran right over to her.

She thanked us, loaded the Lab up and drove off.

So far so good.

Since she had not recognized the Dalmatian and because that dog had no collar, we put it back in the car and drove over to Twin Lakes Vet so they could scan for any ID tags under her skin.

The scan turned up nothing, so we drove home and put an old collar on her, leashed her up and took her for a walk around the neighborhood. Along the way, I put up a couple of the signs I had made.

Anytime we thought the dog wanted to go home we let her lead us and on the route.

We passed right by a house that had a truck just like the one that the lady who owned the brown lab had owned.

The Dalmatian made no special motions there but a couple of houses north of it a woman came out and told us that this dog had been coming into her garage for the past week and eating their dogs food and barking at her kids.

Back at home, we kept the new dog in the laundry room with the Dutch door open so we could keep an eye on her.

She was still a bit jumpy, but after some biscuits and water, she calmed down and fell asleep.

Mrs. A decided to call her "Dot" because of her markings. We let Dot fall into the patterns our other two dogs follow with potty breaks after meals and we arranged the dog beds to minimize friction amongst the group.

Dot slept through the night and was no problem for us, and on Monday, I put her in the laundry room with just one other dog and headed out for a meeting.

On my way home, what do I see but brown dog again, out running around loose in the same place as before. This time, I loaded her up and took her right to her house.

A big fellow came to the door and I told him that I thought I might have his dog and he said, "A Dalmatian?"

A little surprised, I said, no and I unloaded the brown dog.

"Oh..Hailey," he said, " I just let you out a minute ago!"

When I asked about the Dalmation, he explained the they had just moved in and that the fence was in poor condition (remember my theory?) and that he was trying to get it fixed. I offered to hang on to the dog until he was ready and I gave him my phone number. What would you have done?

Next: Part Two