This was a few weeks ago. After Sophie had rang the bell hanging from the back door about five or six times to be let out, I allowed her a brief escape from the apparent depravity that is my house. Poooooor dog. Cooped up all day with a doting parent (me, who fed her about half a turkey on Thanksgiving) and three cats she can terrorize. I was working on something at the time, so I sat back down to my computer. An hour or so later, I get up to let her back in, and I see that the gate is open. There is a small hole at the base of my gate, which allows rabbits to taunt my dog and then run to safety. I am not sure what happened, but I am assuming after one extreme rabbit taunting, Sophie had somehow pried the gate open (the lock sucks) and... ESCAPED.
Like I said, it was an hour before I noticed she was missing. My immediate reaction was to begin blubbering. Realizing this would solve nothing, I grabbed her leash and set out walking up and down my street calling her name. I live on a busy street, and it is semi-rush hour as I am doing this, so it does nothing to alleviate my distress, cars whizzing by at the approximate speed that could maim my precious little Doodoos. About twenty minutes pass. Nothing. Unfortunately, as it is fall, there are a bunch of dry leaves blowing about and a billion or so squirrels, so I am turning around in circles at every noise expecting to see my dumb dog chasing a leaf into oncoming traffic.
I realize I can cover a lot more ground in my car, so I go back into my house to get my keys. The real blubbering begins. Only this time, there is no rational thought that can stop it. I get in my car and proceed to make concentric circles of ever-widening radii around my neighborhood. All of my windows are rolled down. I am driving 10 miles per hour. I am crying and yelling "MEEEEEHEWWW!" out of the windows. (This is "Sophie" in blubber-speak). Nothing. I stop EVERY person I see (and there are a lot outside in my neighborhood, very walkable) to ask them in Blubber-English if they have seen my dog. My face is blotchy from the crying, and I am almost sure my grimace was scaring them. One postman offered me the helpful tidbit, "Oh, I wouldn't want my dog to get lost on THIS street, it's so BUSY!" "GWAArrrrYAH!" I cried as I drove off.
I drove for an hour around my dumb neighborhood. Somehow, I was able to stop the blubs long enough to come up with a more rational plan. I went back insidethe house and called Animal Control. BRILLIANT! No one answers. FUCK! I call the police department. "What kind of dog and what did her collar look like?" I tell the woman, and she goes off for what seems like five minutes in (I am sure) a frenzied search among her PILES of paperwork (this, the whitest of white suburbs in America where absolutely nothing happens EVER). She comes back to the phone. YES. Some woman had called in with a find that matched my description. She gives me a phone number. I call it. YES! My idiot dog had followed this woman home who was walking her own dog. Followed her for SEVEN blocks. The woman had put Sophie in her back yard for safe keeping. I spew out some sort of religious sentiment about her being a saint and in needing of immediate canonization or something. I go to pick up my dog.
Sophie is all a-wags when I get to this woman's house. I was seriously so mad. SO MAD when I got there, and I am sure still all red-faced and blotchy from crying. Then, I was led around the side of the house to the backyard, and Sophie is hunched over by the gate waiting for me, wagging her tail like no one's business. She bursts out of the gate when it is opened and does like ten frenzied laps around my left leg and gives me snuffles and snuffles. A snuffle, you poor souls that don't know, is when a dog gives your snorts/kisses on your ear. After she has snuffled enough to secure her place among the living (seriously, I was SO MAD), she trots over and jumps in my back seat. What. An asshole.
So. She has been grounded the last few weeks. I follow her outside whenever she has to potty and I wait for her to be done. That is ALL the outside time she has gotten off of her leash. The next day, I go to PetsMart, and I get her another tag made with my name and phone number. I also make an appointment to get her microchipped. I was driving home talking to my dad, telling him the story. In classic Dad fashion he says, "Well. Why don't you get her TAGS?" Thanks, Dad. You're a genius. Later that night, I get an email from him. "Can't you put some sort of CHIP in her or something?" Double thanks, Dad. Here is the most recent picture of her. This is the face she has been wearing for the last few weeks. I think it says, "give me more turkey," but a little part of me thinks it also says, "Sorry I scared you. It won't happen again."
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