Some dogs are useful. They guard your property, protect you in times of danger, or, at the very least, fetch your slippers.

Some dogs are profitable. They win trophies and cash prizes.

Some dogs are loyal. They stick with you no matter what, braving floods and fires to stay at their owner's side.

The dog at our house, Ginger, is none of these things.

Ginger's idea of guarding the property is to take a nap beside a window, where she could see an intruder if he woke her up. That would happen only if the intruder made a sound louder than Ginger's snoring, which would happen only if he fell through a ceiling.

Ginger has never won a cash prize or trophy, unless you count second place in an ugly dog contest. Her idea of loyalty is sticking with you until whatever you're eating is gone.

It's not that Ginger is a bad dog. She's smart, good-natured and likes people. Some people even think she's cute.

It's just that I had a little trouble warming up to her. She's one of our daughter's dogs, squatting at our house temporarily. My inability to warm up to her may have had something to do with her squatting on our new carpet.

Last weekend, Ginger vanished. We left her in the yard while we went out for a couple of hours and accidentally left the gate ajar. Seeing a rare opportunity to escape and panhandle strangers for unaccustomed delicacies, she seized the moment.

"Not a problem," I told my wife. "Someone will find her and call the cell phone number on her collar. She'll be back by dinnertime."

Wrong. Our granddaughter had taken the collar off to give Ginger a bath. It was still lying on the bathroom counter.

And so the search began. Certain she couldn't be far away, we went outside and called her name.

No response.

"Ginger! Time to eat!"

Still nothing. Maybe this was more serious than we thought.

A walk around the neighborhood yielded expressions of concern from neighbors, but no dog. While my wife tried unsuccessfully to reach the Humane Society, I broadened the search by bicycle.

Still nothing. By this time we'd been searching for almost an hour. Time to up the ante. She drove to the humane society office; I drove the neighborhood in ever-expanding circles, shouting "Ginger" out of the driver's window.

"Lose your dog?" a passerby asked.

"No, it's my daughter's stupid dog."

To my surprise, I regretted the words almost instantly. Even more surprising, I realized that I was genuinely worried about that stupid dog.

The search, meanwhile, was looking less and less promising. The humane society didn't have her, I'd explored parts of the neighborhood I didn't know existed, and it would be dark soon. That meant temperatures near freezing and, worse, carnivorous raccoons.

With fading hope, I made a third and final swing through the neighborhood park - where two women in an SUV did a double take as I passed. (A man shouting out a window tends to have that effect on people.) Then they stopped.

"Did you lose a dog?" one of them asked.

"Yes."

"What does it look like?"

I described the fugitive.

"Here she is," the woman said, holding Ginger out the window. "We found her on the bike path."

I thanked them profusely, and meant it. Then I called my wife with the news.

She burst into tears.

As for me É well, let's just say it took awhile for the knot in my stomach to go away.

It's funny how attached we can get to pets that aren't remotely useful. That night, when no one was looking, I sneaked her some of her favorite treats. Then we watched part of the PBS National Park series together.

When it was time to let her out before we called it a day, I turned on the lights in the yard and went outside with her. You never know when a raccoon might be lurking.

© 2009 Idaho Statesman

Tim Woodward: 377-6409