"Do you know this dog?"

On Monday night--Family Home Evening night--my "family" and I drove to Spanish Fork, Utah for the evening. We were headed to the home of one of the members of the bishopric of our congregation. After a delightful time of introductions and a spiritual message and pumpkin cookies, we headed down the road a little way to see the house that Mel grew up in. We also saw this little guy in the road:

We looked at the lovely home now inhabited by others and another home with gargoyles--unusual for Utah valley. We decided that if the little abominable snowman pup was still there, we'd stop and check for tags. We did. He had a collar, without tags. The shelter was closed. This was a cold night, so I picked him and we began knocking on doors to find his home and family. In each neighborhood, someone would tell us he lived the next block over. It sort of felt like tracting.

We tried calling him every name we could think of: Rover, Snowball, Fluffy, Marcello, Spot, Trixie. We tried putting him down and following him. He would just dash off and then come back and ask to be picked up. Maybe because he was shaking like crazy from the cold. We called the police and dispatch told us they were sending someone to the church parking lot where we waited in the car.

Unfortunately, the officer called and said they were unable to pick him up until morning, and could we please take him home for the night? Well, we live in an apartment, 30 minutes from where we were at. Doug, a neighbor to the place we found the little abominable snowman, offered to take him in for the night. So he did. This was our family home evening: Our apartment family grew to include a little adopted dog, who did not stay, and his smell, which did.