I'm the “Man of the House,” and what I say goes.

When I make a “rule” or “decree” it is to be followed.

And when I said a dog would not be allowed in the house, then I meant good and well that a dog would not be allowed in the house.

So, after the dog had been in the house a couple of days and adapted itself to living inside, I gotta sorta attached to it.

I cannot explain why it chews up bras (not mine) and DVD cases (mine), but it's entertaining to see it crawl up on the couch to rest, or corral the kids in the living room.

Anyway, we'd all grown accustomed to “Polly,.” and when she shot out the back door one morning, I assumed she'd wonder around for a couple of hours and return home.

I returned home that evening to find my wife, Renee' sitting cross-legged on the bed-looking morose.

That's not unusual in itself, but the three, smallest kids were also sitting around looking morose.

“The dog didn't come back,” Renee' said.

“Ah,” I said, “she will. “Dogs do that.”

Two days passed, and still no dog.

The mood around the house was more sullen than usual.

I felt I was somehow being blamed for the dog being gone.

“You didn't want it in the house,” Renee' said-with the kids nodding in conspiratorial agreement with their mother.

True, but I didn't put the dog out, pack its bags, buy it plane tickets, or subscribe to How to Get Rid of Your Dog magazine. (Hmmm...I wonder if there is such a thing.)

I drove around the neighborhood a few times-hoping an over 100-pound, snow-white (OK, she's actually “yellow-ish”) Great Pyrenees would suddenly appear.

No luck.

“Somebody probably ran over her,” Renee' said.

“No,” I said, “if they did hit her, she's so big it would tear their car all to pieces.”

“Somebody probably stole her,” Renee' said.

“No,” I said, “she's to big to pick up, or sneak off with.”

The only thing we could do is wait...watch...wonder.

The weekend came and I took a couple of the kids to church with me on Sunday.

When we returned home, I opened the back door to find Polly standing on the ever-present pile of clothes in the laundry room.

“Hey, she's back!” I said.

Renee' told me the interesting story of her return.

It seems Polly had wandered away from the house, and made it to Jamestown.

Fallon Mouton said the big, white dog wandered past her door a couple of times,.

Noticing a spot of blood on the dog, Fallon and her family took the dog in and cared for her.

Fallon noticed Polly's collar-which had a name, and a couple of phone numbers engraved on it.

She couldn't reach anyone through the home phone number (Note to self: Pay the phone bill), and the other number was a work number-which no one answers on the weekend.

Fallon then went to the trouble to do an exhaustive Internet search to find us, and return Polly safely.

I wish I could have been there to express my sincere appreciation to the Moutons.

(I also wish we could give them a big ol' cash reward or something, but we just don't have it, and if we did have even a little cash, we ought to do something like, oh, pay the phone bill.)

I got to know the Moutons when I worked at the library and was always amazed at how beautiful and well-mannered her children were.

They were an absolute joy to be around. (Note to my kids: Learn from the Mouton children and quit being heathens.)

Way every once in a while I'd run into Fallon and some of her friends and family at a local store, and they'd always smile and say “hello.”

Just really nice people.

(LOVE the accent, too.)

This was an interesting way to learn the Moutons live close by and I'm sure glad to have people like them in the neighborhood.

Polly is readjusting well and is dealing with her traumatic disappearance by adapting a new hobby of chewing on used diapers.

As for me, the “Man of the House” who supposedly allowed the family pet to escape, I'm in the “dog house.”