four legged lovies

I have always had a thing for animals. As a child, I remember finding wounded birds and bringing them home to try to nurse them back to health. Housing them in cardboard boxes in a small back room on a porch we had on the back of our home, I would create nests and try to feed them and keep them warm and safe (ironically, it was probably our cat - one of several - who maimed the poor birds). I always seemed to be wanting to bring animals home as a kid.

poor freckles. 1968. amsterdam, ny

We always had cats, and I loved dogs. My mom's parents always had dogs, and I loved going to visit them two blocks away and playing with their beasts. Don't get me wrong - I loved the cats we had very much. All of them (and there were many, it seemed). Fluffy the huge, grey cat. Tiger, my cat. Then a string of them it seems.
One day, a neighbor's dog wandered down the street and I decided in my little brain that he was lost; but, I think I knew very well who she belonged to...the Quiri Family from about three houses away. To a four-year-old, I guess that was a significant distance to be wandering.
I captured her with my jumprope and brought her into our garage and closed the door. I remember walking her around in circles (had I seen Westminster?) and thinking that maybe I could keep her. This is about all I remember. I don't know if the adults were angry or amused. I am not sure if Freckles was traumatized. I have no sense of how long this whole episode took - was it minutes or hours?
I just think about this story and smile inside thinking that the more things change, the more they stay the same. My jumprope's been replaced by real leashes and the animals in my life are really my own (or am I theirs?). And so it goes.