Two days ago, I got the e-mail we’d been dreading since posting our found dog ad on Craig’s List:

We have been missing a black & white border collie female.

Her name is Daisy and she is very friendly.

Hope this is her,we are at xxxxx@xxxxxxx.net

Uh oh. We exchanged a few more emails, and it sounded like this was legitimately the writer’s dog — after all, how many female border collies could be wandering the Texas hill country near San Marcos? We arranged for her to come by and pick up the hound, and then everybody sat around the living room, despondently throwing the ball around the house for the dog to retrieve. One. Last. Time.

The doorbell rang at last, and the woman and her son came in. They played with the dog for a bit, looked her up and down, and after about 30 seconds announced “This isn’t Daisy.”

As you can imagine, there was much rejoicing among the family members who had grown attached to the wee beast over the past few weeks. We made a game attempt to be sympathetic to the owner who had not, in fact, found her dog, but I think it came off a trifle hollow.

So it looks like the provisional addition to our family may be a permanent one. (And yes, {Stephanie Woodward}, I realize that I still owe you a photo of the dog. I posted one, but my weblog software ate it and started throwing errors. I suspect that it was jealous.)