No good deed goes unpunished. Not at my house.

So there I was at 11 o’clock on a frozen April night, standing in an icy stream, trying to wrest a 100-pound dog away from a cornered gray cat. With a bad knee. (Mine, not the cat’s.)

If I limped to one side of the stream, the dog, known locally as Roscoe, would jump to the other side. I would limp around to the other side and our positions were reversed.

It was a decidedly noisy session with the dog barking, the cat hissing and me yelling and swearing at the damn dog. I am sure the neighbors were impressed – especially the owner of the cat. (Actually, cats don’t have owners, they have staff.)

Finally, wet and frozen, I drove the big, black dog away from the cornered, hissing cat. He took off. I don’t know if you have ever chased a big, black dog in the middle of the night. I do not recommend it.

I had visions of the fleeing dog run down by a speeding pickup truck, since several drove by. (I wonder what they thought.) The dog ran beside each vehicle and looked ready, willing and able to get in and drive away.

See you later, chump.

The dog was on loan from my delightful daughter Bridget, her husband and fabulous if cacophonous offspring while they went off to Disney World. I did not look forward to breaking the news that their dog had died while under my care. Roscoe was allegedly a Katrina-New Orleans rescue dog, so he is a wildly sympathetic, if totally untrained, figure.

Since I had once housed and trained a German shepherd puppy for a local kennel, I mistakenly thought I could teach this old dog a few new tricks and return a newly behaved animal to his Maine adopted family.

Right.

I was so concerned with his comfort (and my rugs) on his first night sleeping over that I took him for an evening constitutional before we retired. He was three paws out the door when he spotted the cat. He took off so hard that he snapped the connection on his chain.

I understood why my daughter only reluctantly walks this beast.

Since he disappeared, I got into my truck and drove around my neighborhood. Roscoe the dog ran up to the truck and jumped in, ready for his return trip to Louisiana, I suppose.

A few days later, while transferring Roscoe from one leash to the other, he again fled like a thief. Back to the road, running up and down beside each vehicle, staring in the windows, looking for his Louisiana relatives, I suppose.

He has not been off the leash since.

Our activities now center on pickup truck tours, which are becoming fewer and fewer. The second he gets in the truck, he starts whining and jumping around the back seat. He watches each car go past, crying and whining.

When he sees another dog, he feels compelled to loose his window-shattering bark, usually within a few centimeters of my ear. It is very hard to drive with fingers in both ears.

When he aggressively shifts window position to watch still another car drive by, he manages to whack me across the face with his 35-pound tail. This can be slightly disconcerting while driving a truck in traffic, or even while stopped, for that matter.

The grandchildren are due back from Florida next Tuesday. I am beginning to suspect that they have moved to Florida permanently and have left me with Roscoe, the wandering Katrina rescue dog.

I am now considering driving him back to New Orleans.

Sit!

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.