I call my parents every night. I can't visit them on working days, so I call to make sure they and our cat are doing well. I seldom miss a phone call, except when I have a very good reason. I just can't be at ease without hearing they're OK and listening to what 8-month-old Spock has been up to during the day!



It's usually my father who answers the phone. We chat for quite a long time as he always has lots of conversation topics. He's still working with my brother: together they sell and install air conditioners, so, as you can imagine, they have to visit a lot of private houses and get to know a lot of people. They have noticed that more and more people live together with cats or dogs (or both), and the love my father and my brother show for animals brings their customers to speak to them about their pets and their stories. So my father always has a gorgeous cat or a funny dog to speak about, or a good story to tell me.



But I think the story he told me last night is the most amazing and moving I have heard so far. Unfortunately he doesn't remember the people's or the pets' real names, so I'll have to invent them. But believe me, the story is real and it happened not earlier than one or two years ago.



As my father told me last night, in the morning they'd visited a beautiful home where husband, wife and mother-in-law live with a cat and two beautiful dogs. As usual, my father and my brothers had paid so many compliments to the pets that the woman had been happy to tell them an unusual story about her beloved dogs. I will call them Dick and Jack, although, as I said, these are probably not their real names.



Some years ago, there used to be another dog in that family. Sadly, he died. Everyone was devastated and they all kept on crying for days, until the husband decided that the best thing to do was to give a home to another dog. And this is what they did: they went to the local branch of the Animals Protection and took a new dog home. They called him Dick.



They immediately fell in love with him, and the wife, who was not working, loved to take long walks about the public gardens and parks near their house, with Dick on his leash. Until, one day, something terrible happened.



As the wife and Dick were walking across a park, another dog came out from nowhere. He was just quietly walking on his own, but Dick got nervous. He started barking, running and pulling his leash, until it slipped off the wife's hand, and Dick quickly disappeared running after the other dog. No matter how much the wife ran and desperately looked for him, Dick was nowhere to be found. He just seemed to have vanished. This was heart-breaking for everyone, especially as they had suffered another loss not so much time before. A search was started and signs were put up everywhere in the streets, but with no result.



Two days after Dick had run away, husband and wife went back to the local Animals Protection to see if by chance someone had found him and brought him there. No, there wasn't any sign of Dick, but another dog started yelping at them and trying to catch their eye. He didn't look like Dick at all, but he sure looked desperate to be taken home. They were moved, and they honestly didn't think they would see Dick again, so they immediately adopted the new dog and called him Jack.



On the following morning, the wife went out for a walk with Jack. They walked quietly for a while, when suddenly Jack stopped for one or two seconds, then started barking, running and pulling his leash as Dick had done some days before. But now the wife was determined not to let her new dog run away, so she held the leash firmly for it not to slip away. Anyway, she decided to follow Jack as he looked as if he was trying to show her something very important.



Soon they were in front of an open gate leading into a public park where children used to go and play. Jack was determined to get into the park. The wife wasn't very keen to let her dog walk into it: there were no children at that time, but she was afraid Jack could leave some "unwanted present" in the playground. Anyway, Jack kept insisting so much that she eventually followed him in.



Once they'd stepped into the park, Jack headed for a bush. The wife still couldn't understand why her dog seemed to have such an urge to reach it, but, as they finally walked past it, she stared in disbelief with her mouth wide open: there was Dick, sad, hungry, tired, exhausted, but still alive! His leash had been caught in the bush and he'd been unable to break free, and, as the park had been empty in the previous days, nobody had seen nor heard him. But how did Jack know?



Yes, how did Jack know? I suppose the whole family will keep wondering for the rest of their lives. But it doesn't matter that much now: as you've certainly guessed, the end of the story is that both Dick and Jack have been taken back home and that they're happily living together with their loving family. The cat has had some problems getting used to two dogs at a time, but now they've reached an agreement and they do not disturb one another. And the wife has learned to mind her dogs' leashes! Yes, her dogs are clever and very special, but... prevention is better!
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