When Good Intentions Go Straight to the Dogs

All right. I admit it. We’re chicken.

We just didn’t have the nerve to ask what happened to the two lost dogs we dropped off in a stranger’s backyard.

But let me back up.

Molly, Polly and I (call me Dolly) walk daily at 7 a.m. to and from our homes to a village center. We stop at the Coffee Bean for a small half-caf-decaf, then walk back to our homes, a round-trip of a couple of miles. We’re none of us spring chickens.

On one such morning, we walked along a stretch of road along a golf course, where the traffic zooms past faster than speeding bullets.

Hip-hopping across this treacherous traffic jungle were two toy poodles. All fluff. Two wads of cotton zigzagging between giant SUVs ready to smash them. Molly was the first to leap out on the road. She caught one of the dogs. Polly did the same for the other. I supervised. Polly instructed Molly on how to hold on to the dogs so they wouldn’t wriggle free. She knows about dogs, having raised several in her lifetime.

No dog owner was in sight. We checked for name tags. Nothing. Silky-white fringed feet were caked with mud and their plump bellies quivered with fear. After a few calming strokes, the pups quieted down, and, holding on tightly, we managed to get them to the village, where Polly, without saying a word, handed me a dog and walked into the village Rite Aid. She returned minutes later with two leashes (seven bucks apiece). What a relief. The dog I carried was beginning to feel like a 10-pound sack of potatoes.

*

Securely leashed, the dogs pranced about, darting against and over each other in chaotic patterns that suggested they were not accustomed to public walks. They snapped at every passing hound and yipped like two hags fighting over a grocery cart. Maybe they were abandoned, after all, we began to speculate.

Numerous cafe regulars along the boulevard who recognized us asked, “Whose dogs?” And we’d explain how the lost dogs were saved from imminent extinction. And, yes, we would try to locate their owners.

None of us could keep the dogs. That was decided then and there.

Molly’s household was already ruled by a possessive setter, who would tear the toy poodles apart at first sight. Polly had sworn she would not clean another dog hair from her recliner. Frankly, I’m not much of a dog--or cat--lover. In my book, feverish animal worship has reduced society to a new low. We would not, however, call the dog pound.

On the walk back home, we knocked on doors. We asked passersby if they had seen the dogs before. Molly took the high road, and I took the low road. Polly took the houses around the corner.

It was Polly who thought she remembered seeing such dogs at a house off the golf course, and we headed for it, dogs in tow. We stopped a neighbor’s child about to set foot into a school van. “Do you know if your neighbor has two dogs?” we asked.

“Yes,” he answered and disappeared into the van.

We praised Polly for her brilliant deduction and walked the dogs to the stranger’s porch.

No one answered the doorbell.

Molly suggested slipping the dogs behind the gate. Polly raised her finger in agreement.

“Isn’t that trespassing?” I asked.

“Yes, but it’s for a good cause,” said Polly.

“What if we get sued?”

“No dog lover would do that,” answered Molly.

Besides, two dog leashes hung on the doorknob. Wasn’t that positive proof that we had the right house?

We waved goodbye to the dogs and headed home, proud of having found their owner.

A neighbor who witnessed the drop-off, praised us.

“You did the right thing,” she said.

My plan was to return the next day to make sure all was well. Polly pooh-poohed the idea.

“Let’s not ask for trouble,” she said. Molly suggested phrasing a note diplomatically. Something like how delighted we were to return the dogs to their rightful owners, and not “we’re dumping two strange dogs in your yard, not sure they belong.”

Polly balked at that plan too. “We can’t leave a paper trail,” she said.

We finally agreed to agree. We’d stick together like the Three Musketeers.

I hardly slept that night, dreaming about mud-caked dogs being dragged to the pound, yelping and snapping.

I would find out what happened to the dogs the next morning.

“What? And implicate all of us?” Polly said when I announced my plan. “Well, keep me out of it,” she said.

Molly began to say something about writing a nice note but never finished her sentence.

As we slinked past the stranger’s house, the gate flung open. Walking out toward us was the owner with two dogs on leashes.

We gasped.

They were two brown dogs--spaniels--not white toy poodles. Not our poodles.

Still spinning from the awful discovery, we sat at the Coffee Bean, silently sipping half-caf-decaf grande. Black with a twist.

The regulars on the boulevard wanted to know what happened to the dogs. Now we were stuck with our incriminating story. They’d seen the evidence. They had the goods on us. We needed advice and needed it fast.

“What would you do?” we asked a regular, who was carefully buttering his toasted bagel. Somehow he seemed like a coffee house guru we could trust.

“You did the right thing,” he said.

Another regular volunteered advice.

“I’m a lawyer,” he said. “I can tell you if you did the right thing.” We gave him the whole story--the part about the hush-hush conspiracy, the brown dogs, and our collective cowardice. Everything.

“Oh, boy,” he said. “You’d better get yourselves a lawyer.”

We often spot the brown dogs, led regally on leashes by their unsuspecting owner. We’ll never know the look on her face when two yipping poodles greeted her in her own backyard. Did she cry for joy, or faint in shock? And where are the dogs? We can only pray they are in their owner’s loving care.

Perhaps we’ll meet again on the boulevard.

Or somewhere.

There must be a place in doggy heaven for people like us.

Rose Dosti can be reached by e-mail at rose.dosti@latimes.com.