Due to an abundance of inactivity — mainly sitting around my apartment and office on Sunday — I decided to go for a brisk walk at Tom Byrne Park.

About four laps in — I wasn’t counting, but was aiming to do around six — I noticed a jingling sound behind me.

At first, I just ignored it, but I noticed a small dog-shaped shadow that was cast from the park’s sodium-burning lights.

Stopping in mid stride, I looked behind me and lo and behold, there was a small dog. He had a skinny face with a greyish beard and mane.

Looking around, I didn’t see its owner and scrounged around for its collar. The dog was hesitant to let me look at the metal engraving as it put its paw up to try and stop me.

Finally, I reached the collar and it didn’t help much as the Atmore Animal Hospital was closed at this point. The hospital’s number was on the collar, along with a tag number it looked like.

I walked around the park, asking random people who they think this dog belonged to. I even walked up to a nearby house and asked if they knew the dog. I didn’t visit many houses because a lot of them were quite dark and I wasn’t in the mood to be confronted on the back-end of a barrel, if you get my drift.

During my surveying of the park, there were two women who told me to at first let the dog go around where I found it, and maybe it would just go back home. Another option was to call the police department and see if they could help.

The dog spent about 10 minutes laying its territory instead of finding its way home. No good.

Calling the Atmore Police Department dispatcher, she told me to place the dog in the fenced-in area behind the police/fire departments on Ridgeley St. She then said she’d get an officer to get the dog some water.

Driving away from the department, I thought to myself, “Self, you did the best you could in trying to find the dog’s owners. Don’t think on this anymore.”

The thought of the dog crept back in my brain Monday afternoon as I wrote the very piece you are reading.

I wonder what the dog’s name is? I wonder what kind of dog it is?

“Who knows?” I asked myself.