Chicago is a Small Town: Doggie Style

Chicagoans say it often—Chicago is such a small town. The big-city-that—sometimes-feels-like-a- hamlet is of the reasons authors like to set books here. It isn’t outside the realm of possibility (in fact, it’s squarely inside) to have a character run into someone she knows on the El train (or at least someone who knows someone she knows). Who knew it was true for dogs as well?

Today, Shafer was raring to go for a walk. We went to Jonquil Park, where she endlessly chased and fetched a white ball. Then we headed home.

Shafer is the kind of dog who likes to sit in the middle of a walk, just to curiously watch a branch-ful of birds. I figured that’s what was going on when she suddenly plunked down in the middle of a sidewalk on Schubert Avenue. It was curious, since my house was in view (a sight that normally makes her pick up the speed).

Across the street, the door to our vet’s office opened. Shafer perked up and started heading across the street in that direction, then veering to the left when she saw another dog.

As we got closer to the dog, I noticed that the dog’s owner was a blond woman dressed in jeans, and the dog…? Well, the dog looked an awful lot like Shafer, only bigger and with redder hair. The other dog looked up.

“Is that a goldendoodle?” I asked the owner.

“Yeah,” she answered. “His name is Sailor.”

“Shafer is a goldendoodle too,” I said, pointing.

Suddenly, the two dogs lunged like they were long lost cousins. Then they commenced playing and jumping all over each other for the next twenty minutes. It took only one of those minutes for the owner and me to discover that we had both gotten our dogs from Country Mini Doodle in Tipton, Indiana.

She told me that they were in the neighborhood that day to get Sailor’s shots at the vet’s. He was in the waiting room when he suddenly whimpered, which he rarely does. His owner took him outside. And there was Shafer. Turns out they were born within a week of each other. We’re tracing family lineage. It’s possible they’re not just long lost cousins but siblings as well.

Meanwhile, this is giving me the stirrings of a new book…..