Last night I stopped along the American River Bike Trail by the river between Howe and Watt Avenues to enjoy the comparative peace and quiet (I could still hear the drone of Highway 50 in the background, though).  As I sat meditating on one of the picnic benches, I heard a rustling in the bushes nearby.  It sounded like something much bigger than one of the squirrels I often see there.  It was dusk, and I wondered if I might be about to have my first cougar sighting.  Suddenly, standing in the clearing was a beautiful boxer.  

He was a young dog with a brindle body and snowy white from the neck up.  He wore a choke chain, but there seemed to be no tags.  I tried to coax him to me to get a better look at his ID, but he ran off toward the levee, then backtracked and disappeared into the heavy growth along the river.  I felt bad for him because it was nearly dark, and I worried that he might get hit by a car during the night.  On my way home, I stopped to ask people if they'd lost a boxer or heard of anyone who had.  I later found out that he'd been seen wandering around La Riviera Drive in College Greens all day.  I hope when and if he is reunited with his owners, they'll take the trouble to put current ID on him, microchip him, take off that choke chain so he doesn't strangle, and make sure he can't get out of his yard again.