My two labs, Buster and Mitchel, will be joining me on the walk. You’ll be seeing lots of pictures of them. I even thought of having them keep a journal, but I figured it would read something like this:

Buster: Eat. Poop. Sleep. Eat. Poop. Sleep. Eat. Poop. Sleep.
Mitchel: Play. Play. Play. Play. Play. Play. Play. Play. Sleep.

Instead – for those of you who don’t know the pups – I thought I’d tell you a little about them…

Mitchel is a three-year-old yellow lab, about 85lbs (which puts her over the maximum size for the AKC breed standard – like that’s what’s stopping her from being a show dog). I got her from a breeder near Front Royal, VA, when she was just a few months old. I decided to name her “Briana” in honor of my favorite football player, Brian Mitchell. But every time I called her name, she would just wag her tail, squat on the floor and pee, then run in the opposite direction. After a week of this, I decided she didn’t like the name “Briana” so I changed it to “Mitchel.” And every time I called her name, she would just wag her tail, squat on the floor and pee, then run in the opposite direction…

Buster is a...mystery, about 110lbs -- none of it brains. The vet's best guess is that Buster is half Lab, half Mastiff. He's in my life because I made the mistake of going with a friend to the animal shelter to help her pick out a dog. She picked him -- but they denied her application because she wasn't home 24x7 and he has "separation anxiety." I argued that they never would find someone who was home all the time – and since he had been in the shelter for several months, the clock was ticking. (I whispered this part so he wouldn’t hear.) The folks at the shelter then said they would give him to someone who already had a dog...and the next thing I knew, Mitchel and I were taking him home. I might not have taken him if I had known that "separation anxiety" is code for “destroys stuff.” (One night, I awoke to a strange sound and turned to find Buster lying beside me on the bed, eating the stuffing out of the pillow I was sleeping on…) Buster has made great strides in the couple of years he has been with Mitchel and me and no longer suffers from “separation anxiety.” He’s simply insane – and feels no anxiety about it whatsoever.

The folks at the DC animal shelter gave him the name “Buster” and no other name could have suited him better – but there is a little more to the story…

One winter afternoon, there was a knock on my door. I opened it to find an officer from Loudoun County Animal Control with a citation for me: I was being charged with cruelty to animals.

When I stopped laughing, I explained to the officer that Buster and Mitchel slept on my bed, ate nothing but fresh chicken and vegetables, went swimming at the reservoir every day, and generally lived a life I envied.

Nonetheless, the officer explained, I had only one doghouse on my deck and the law required me to have two doghouses – one per dog. I explained that the dogs loved the cold weather and would sleep in the snow given a chance, but that if it were too cold even for them, they would want to cuddle together…in one dog house.

The officer wasn’t swayed by my logic. I promised to buy another dog house. She promised not to haul me off to jail.

All that was left, she said, was the paperwork – for which she needed to see the dogs’ licenses. “Oh, I don’t let them drive,” I assured her. She was not amused and I had to confess that they were outlaw hounds. Again, not a problem. I could give her the fees, she would give me the licenses on the spot. All I had to do was produce proof that they had their rabies vaccines.

She spared me the embarrassment of having to confess that my filing system consisted of a big closet into which I threw things. “Let’s just call your vet,” she said. At last, a moment for me to shine. I had the vet’s number memorized. Surely, the officer would see this as proof that I was a better dog owner than my “rap sheet” might indicate. I dialed and handed her the phone. The conversation took a little longer than it should have. When she hung up, she said that while Mitchel’s vaccine was current, Buster’s was due to expire the very next day.

Now, we both knew the vet had sent me reminders weeks before. We both knew I didn’t have an appointment for Buster to get his shot – that day or the next. And we both knew she wasn’t going to give me the license.

A week later, I dropped Buster off at the vet. He was going to get his shots, and since I had him there, get his hip x-rayed to find out why he had been limping, and – since they were going to have to anesthetize him for the x-ray – have a tracing microchip implanted.

For those of you without a canine obsession, the microchip is about the size of a grain of rice, and implanted in the dogs shoulder. Animal shelters and most vets have scanning equipment that allows them to “read” the microchip and reference a central database for ownership info. Mitchel had already had her implant – I just hadn’t gotten around to Buster’s yet.

The next day when I came to pick up Buster, I knew there was trouble. The front desk staff – usually friendly – were unusually quiet. No one would meet my eye. They just said the vet needed to talk with me.

“When we went to implant the chip, we ran into a…problem,” the vet said. “He already has a chip.” The vet looked at me. I looked at Buster. It was kind of funny to imagine somebody being foolish enough to steal this dog. And then I realized that the vet didn’t think it was funny. “You’ll need to contact the database and get this straightened out,” he said. With great reluctance, he let me take Buster home.

His name was Dolan. He had been brought to a shelter in Manhattan as one of an abandoned litter of puppies. They implanted the microchip and Dolan was adopted out almost immediately – bet he was cute. Bet he was small. When he was less than a year old, he was picked up wandering the streets and returned to his owners who had reported him lost. Another year after that, they reported him lost again.

This is where the story gets a little fuzzy. In my imagination, there’s a donut truck parked on a side street, its back gate open, its driver making a delivery. Buster – wandering the streets of NYC – smells the donuts, jumps on board. The driver comes back, shuts the gate, drives off…

All that is known for sure is that Buster next appears at the DC animal shelter where he is brought after being found wandering the streets of Washington. (In my imagination, he’s still got white powder all over his face from the donuts…)

After a few months, he is adopted out to a lovely couple – who bring him back two weeks later after he has eaten most of their furniture.

Another few months pass and I show up at the shelter to help a friend pick out a dog…

Did his owners in Manhattan want Dolan back? The database people said they would have to contact them. Buster, Mitchel, and I spent a miserable few days waiting for the word. At any minute, I expected the doorbell would ring and there would be a family standing there asking for their dog back.

It didn’t happen. “Dolan’s” owners signed him over to me and he became “Buster” once more. (I tried calling him “Dolan” a few times to see if he would come. He didn’t even raise his head off the floor.) (Sort of like what happens when I call him “Buster.”)

And finally, I called the DC animal shelter and asked why they hadn’t scanned for a microchip when he was first brought in. No scanning equipment. To no one’s surprise, that shelter has since closed for lack of funding.

The moral of the story? You don’t find your dog, your dog finds you – even if he has to travel 300 miles to do it.