I live in a pretty small town in the country. Our population is 2,180 but I’m not sure if they have updated the sign since we moved here so let’s call it 2,184.

I love living here. Coming from a busy city, I appreciate that we only have one general store that sells everything you could possibly need (Well, actually, it’s more like they sell candy bars and pies- but I am VERY comfortable with this). Because we are such a small community, I felt an immediate sense of inclusion. People are so freaking nice here. When you’re standing outside waiting for the school bus, people actually stop and say hello to you. After two minutes you know their daughter is visiting on the weekend, they have two cats- they used to have three but Misty got out last Spring and never came home, and they will be returning this afternoon with that cobbler recipe they told you about.

As any good resident to a new town, I immediately joined their social media group which mainly consists of people posting that their cat has gotten out, or they heard a loud noise and want to know if anyone else heard it.

I was late getting out of the house last week. My son couldn’t find his glasses, so the time I usually spend making my coffee was spent turning the house upside down looking for his glasses (we eventually found them in the exact spot I told him to look from the beginning). Finally managing to get the kids on the bus, I quickly made my coffee and got in the car. The quickest route to work consists of going down a country road for a quarter of an hour with no cellphone reception. It makes me a little nervous so I try and avoid this route in the evening, but I guess I am a risk taker in daylight and drive down it in the mornings.

I just turned onto the road that morning and spotted a small dog to my right, just wandering around. Even though I was late for work, I had to pull the car over. I know I would have thought about the dog all day if I didn’t at least stop and try to help. Disclaimer: Since moving to the country I have discovered that just because roads are winding and have many blind corners, this does not slow people down. I was therefore imagining this poor dog getting hit by a car and in my mind it would have been my fault. Anyways, I got out of the car and not sure what to do, I tried to call the dog over to me. He looked up, but made no indication of coming over to me. I looked both ways and then took a few steps towards him, but every step I took he kept backing up more and more. At this point I was really late for work, and I thought better of trying to somehow get a hold of dog that really didn’t want me to approach it. Instead, I grabbed my phone and took a picture of him and posted it to our town’s social media group. The post went something like this:

Hello! This is my first post to the group (yah!). I was just on my way to work when I saw this dog wandering down the side of the road. I have tried to call him to me, but he doesn’t seem very friendly so thought better of approaching him. I thought I would post a picture of him instead, and if anyone is missing their dog or anyone knows whose dog this is, come and get him! Hope he gets home soon!

I attached the picture to the post and continued my drive to work. When I got to work the first thing I did was check my phone to see if anyone had commented on my post. There was only one comment and it read:

Umm, yeah, that’s a coyote. Definitely don’t try and put him in your car.