The other day I threw my dog Louie in the front seat of the truck, and headed for a place I know where we can romp in the snow without getting in the way of either skiers or snowmobiles. As we reached the west edge of town, a car swerved ahead of me on the icy asphalt.

I slowed down, and saw a black-and-white mutt in the middle of the road, defying me to pass in a kind of suicidal challenge.

There was no one behind me, and I managed to pull over without hitting the dog. I have the chauvinism of a bird-dog owner, and make a point of trying to round up any stray Lab, Golden, Brittany, Setter or Wirehair I see, while I usually ignore free-running mutts. But I made an exception with this dog of indeterminate breed, and decided to catch him and find his owners.

He stayed on the shoulder of the road while I got out of the truck, looking at me with mixed suspicion and curiosity. He would retreat when I approached, and approach when I retreated. Finally I began to jog away from the road, and, sure enough, he followed.

After less than a hundred yards, the dog veered toward a small house with faded blue metal siding. He ran into the tiny, partially fenced yard, turned, and watched to see what I would do. I went up to the door and knocked, my knuckles making a dull sound on the cold, hollow aluminum. While I waited I looked around the yard: the ice-covered remains of a flowerbed, a deer-ravaged sapling of some sort, a pair of children's bicycles, a skateboard, a yellow plastic swing set. Through the curtained front window I could see the flicker of a television screen.

Meanwhile, the dog still waited, poised to flee, but hanging around just in case some unexpected treat might be forthcoming. After a long half-minute the door opened a few inches. A girl looked out, maybe five or six years old, with the dark ringlets and round cheeks of a cherub.

"Hi there," I said, "is that dog yours?"

From inside the house I could hear what sounded like an infomercial for exercise equipment.

When the girl didn't answer, I asked, "Is your mom or dad home?"

A female voice inside the house answered for her, "Dad's not coming home."

Then, to the girl, "Shut the door. Now."

The dog stayed in the yard and watched me leave, then, when I had almost reached my truck, ran after me. This time I ignored him. As I pulled away, I could see him in my rear view mirror. He looked my way for a few seconds, then turned to face the oncoming traffic.

Twenty minutes later, Louie and I were in our favorite patch of forest, and I had forgotten about the black-and-white mutt. A set of boot tracks in the snow ruined the illusion that this spot was ours alone, but it didn't matter. I trudged along in the cold sunshine, and Louie raced ahead of me, the bell around his neck jingling faintly as he quartered back and forth through the aspen bottoms and up the lodgepole slopes.

A few hundred yards along the trail something strange caught my eye -- a bird wing suspended by a wire. I flashed back to my teenage years when I ran a trap-line, and often used a dangling quail wing to attract bobcats to my traps. Suddenly I knew what the boot tracks meant, and whistled frantically for my dog. When Louie finally came back, taking his time as usual, I scooped him up, and walked with him the quarter mile back to the truck. He didn't resist as I carried him, a 35-pound, pampered, canine baby. In the embarrassingly intimate language of dog lovers, I apologized for our aborted walk, and told him that, sometimes, life doesn't turn out exactly the way you want.