Dog Days
Great moments in building history: Both the bathroom and the dog are going to be fine
Last summer, I took a job remodeling a bathroom in one of Houston’s nicer neighborhoods. The homeowner, a middle-school administrator, was concerned not only about the project but also about her dog and how I would guarantee that the dog would not get loose during my numerous trips in and out of her home. She told me about the heartache her family endured every time the dog got loose and the difficulty they had catching their runaway pet. I assured the homeowner that both her bathroom and her dog would be fine.
Before starting demolition, I decided to make friends with the dog, and I brought him a hamburger from a nearby fast-food restaurant. The dog wolfed down the burger, growled at me, and then stood near the fence, waiting for his chance at freedom. Being a lover of dogs, I was not insulted by the display of disrespect.
Although the removal of the bathroom fixtures and cabinets required lots of trips in and out of the house, my crew and I made sure the dog never got to the front door or the backyard gate. The homeowner came by on her lunch hour to check on the dog. I started to think that she was more concerned about her dog than her bathroom.
The dog made several failed attempts at freedom, and after a while, I felt more like I was running a maximum-security prison than a remodeling project.
By day three, the bathroom’s transformation was well under way. Shortly after lunch, I was entering the secure zone with a load of trim under my arm when I noticed my customer’s dog sitting smugly on the lawn across the street. Panic-stricken, I dropped the trim and ran toward the dog.
Freedom obviously suited the dog, and as I approached, he ran off. Tools flew from my pouch as I gave chase in the July heat. I ran across several lanes of busy traffic into an adjoining subdivision and temporarily lost sight of the dog.
The sound of screeching tires drew my attention to an intersecting street where I saw a police car slide to a stop. The officer behind the wheel recognized me and had assumed that I must have been chasing a wanted felon. (In addition to running a small construction company, I’m a homicide detective with the Houston Police Department.) I quickly explained to the officer that I was trying to catch a dog, not a suspect.
I somehow managed to talk the uniformed officer into helping me capture the runaway dog. The officer drove the dog and me back to the job site in his air-conditioned police car. I thanked the officer and carried the panting dog through the backyard gate.
As I was about to put the dog on the ground, I was stunned by what I saw. My crew was sitting under a tree eating lunch, and the homeowner’s dog patiently sat next to them, waiting for their handouts. The dog in my arms and the homeowner’s dog looked a lot alike, but I could certainly see that I was holding the wrong dog.
I later learned that the dog I had chased lived across the street, where I had initially seen it. Word got back to my office in the homicide division that I had nothing better to do on my days off but chase dogs. The bathroom-remodeling project went well and led to more work in the same neighborhood, but I didn’t find myself having to recover any more runaway dogs.
Drawing by: Jackie Rogers
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