I will be damned. I had a dog named Sugar when I was a kid - beagle/terrier mix, and she lived to be almost twenty. My parents got her when I was two years old. And she did a lot of similar things with me that this one did with her owner. Once she followed me all the way to elementary school, and I tried to send her back up the hill to home, but she found an open door to let herself in, and walked the halls until she found me in class. LOL Mom had to hop in the car and come liberate her from Principal Skidmore's office. My mother would give me grocery money, send me to the A&P at the foot of the hill, and she'd be right beside me. She'd stop at the front door and plop herself down by the gumball machines so she'd be out of the way of foot traffic. If it was an especially hot day, she'd step on the automatic pad in front of the entrance, and come inside the store to cool off in the A/C - all the cashiers knew her, and she'd never venture farther than the checkout lanes. Once she was comfortable, she'd let herself right back out the other door and wait for me to come out lugging the groceries. Thanks for posting - it's kind of surreal. If it was my Sugar, I'd have gone back in for her, too. She was a special one to a lot of us, including the neighbors.
