Lost and found dogs

This morning Haley and I ran into a free-roaming dog on the other side of town. This isn't too unusual, and generally such dogs will stroll by and go along their way. This dog saw us coming and crossed the street, but then seemed to change his mind and circled around behind us and proceeded to do a standard canine identification check on Haley. I didn't exactly shoo him away, but I turned and pulled Haley closer and he backed off and decided to walk the other way down the street. I felt a little bad about this - he wasn't particularly threatening, and we wouldn't have minded the company - so I called after him, but he kept on going.

In the morning paper an ad caught my eye. It was about two inches across and three inches high with a picture of a dog on it above the words "I'M LOST", followed by a description of a dog who got lost not too many miles from here and who could have been our early-morning visitor. I'm terrible with facial recognition on people, and am probably worse with animals, but it might have been the same dog. Maybe.

Tomorrow morning we will set off armed with a spare leash and the name of that lost dog. If we should happen to run into that same stray dog and if he responds to that name and is wearing a collar, I will attempt to leash him, walk him home, and try to reunite him with his owners. It's the sort of thing I would greatly appreciate somebody else doing if Haley ever wandered off. Odds are he's miles away by now, but I'll give it a shot, just in case.

UPDATE: The lost dog's name is Ruby, and he's a she, and we didn't run into her (or any other stray dogs) today. Oh well. Hope things work out.