Indiana Jones, you don't belong to us

This is Indiana. He belongs to our neighbors', the Joneses.


In his heart, I truly believe, Indiana feels as if he belongs to the wrong family. He wants to be one of us. We try to include him in most all of our outdoor, around the house activities, but I draw the line at feeding him. Indiana roams free around the cul de sac, and some days I'll wake up when the alarm goes off at six and I'll look outside and the photo above is what I'll see. So Indy will trot along with the girls and I on our morning walk. He jumps in our cars to go for rides, he's figured out how to open the gate to the backyard, and one morning, while playing on the Internets, I looked down, expecting to find Sipsey nudging my arm for some affection, and it was Indy. Poor, sweet boy.

Last night was the first night he's spent the entire night on our front porch. And the awful thing was, I was so excited and happy to see him this morning. I keep having to remind myself that he is not my dog. I walked him over to his owner's house where the teenage boy was standing outside, calling his name. I told him that Indy had spent all night on our porch and he apologized profusely. "It's okay!" I replied, "I just wanted to make sure that he wasn't hungry and that everything was okay!" The kid (I forget his name because I am one of those sorts of neighbors who knows your dog's name but not yours) acted genuinely concerned and worried that his dog did not come home last night, and I told him that Indy spends a lot of time at our house and if he can ever not find him, just walk on over, nine times out of ten, he's on our front porch.

So I suppose that Indiana is one of the best sorts of pets. One that gives love and affection and attention and protection and stays outside, but also one that we don't have to feed.

Sweet Indiana Jones.