THE DOG ESCAPADE

What a way to start the week.

Karen woke up first and went to the kitchen. I could hear the water running in the kitchen sink, which meant she was watering the livestock…the six cats and 2 dogs. I heard her open the fridge, rattle around, and close the fridge. That meant she had rounded up two extremely cheap all “meat” wieners, which we use for doggy treats.

She went outside and a few seconds later came back in and said, “Bob, the gate is open and the dogs are gone!”

We have 2 dogs: Bear – a huge, wide, brown, old, sort of a Golden Retriever and Molly – a mid-size, black, semi-old, blind Border Collie. So, we had a decrepit dog and a blind dog out running around town.

We got dressed and started driving around the neighborhood, but we couldn’t find them. I finally took Karen home, so she could shower and get ready for work.

I kept driving in larger and larger circles, looking between houses and in fields and, as much as I hated to look, in the middle of the street.

I finally started asking walkers, with dogs, if they had seen a big, old, brown dog with a smaller black dog. The second person I asked, who was walking a yellow lab, said she had seen them and told me where she saw them.

I drove to that neighborhood and asked two other walkers if they had seen the dogs. They hadn’t, but took my cell phone number so they could call me if they spotted the dogs.

I asked the next group of ladies and one of them said that she’d seen them in her neighborhood, a block away, to the north, about 20 minutes earlier. I went there, but still not dogs.

I came back to the original spot the first lady had said she saw them, just as my cell phone started to ring. As I reached for my phone, I saw the original lady with her yellow lab, as well as the 2 ladies who had taken my phone number. One of them had her cell phone up to her ear. She was calling me to tell me that she had the dogs. The ladies were all standing around Bear and Molly.

I pulled up, opened the back door to my car, and said, “Bear. Molly. What are you doing?”

They both shot into the backseat of my car and immediately laid down. They were both panting and wet (probably from playing in yards that had sprinklers going).

I took them home, let them out of the car and watched as they ran for their water. After glugging down a huge amount of water, they dropped down on the cool cement carport and went fast asleep.

I took these photos of them, looking kind of guilty. They finally got tired of me taking photos and strolled into their doghouse, without even a thanks or a look back over their shoulders. Ingrates!!