My Three Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad, No Good Days… and the best possible outcome.
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| Ridiculous. This is how Teddy was sleeping. |
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| He likes his Christmas present from my mom. |
On Friday
morning I stepped out the door of our apartment at 6:30am with my sneakers
laced up and the dog’s leash in my hand.
I had dragged myself out of bed early to go for a run with the dog. Usually when I get up early like this I can
hear Teddy’s excited whine noises coming from outside as soon as I’ve turned on
a light in the house. If he could form
words out of those noises I think he would be saying “yippee, you’re up! hurry,
hurry, I’m waiting for you, lets go run!”
So on Friday morning when I stepped out the door and still didn’t hear
Teddy I thought it strange. I wondered
if maybe he was up on the roof of the apartment building. I know he goes up there often as evidenced by
the many piles of dog poo I discovered when I went up to take pictures last
week. So I called for him, but no
response. I called again. Then I walked around the building. No Teddy.
“Jean-Patrick! Teddy’s not here!” I shout-whispered into the bedroom window. I went to the gate door to see if Teddy was in the street. He wasn’t.
I went out into the street shouting for my dog and I did a 10 minute jog looping the immediate area calling and scanning for him as I went. I was expecting him to come bounding around a corner at any second. I went back home to let JP know I hadn’t found him yet. This wasn’t normal. JP talked to the night guard who prowls around our building and the neighboring one all night. He said he had seen the dog for sure at 5am but wasn’t sure after that. Someone must have left the gate door unlatched and the dog got out and went for an adventure.
I did a longer search on foot, and JP went out on the motorcycle to call and look before he had to leave for school. We didn’t find Teddy but we were hoping that he would show up at home at any moment.
By that afternoon I was in tears, and my heartache continued for 3 long days.
If you are not a dog lover you might not understand this very well. Let me try to explain.
Teddy is not just some animal to me, he is my buddy. He keeps me company when I am home alone, and he serves as my personal security service by barking if anyone comes near the door. If I come back to the house after being away, even for a short time, Teddy reacts like a kid on Christmas morning. You can’t help but feel happier when you get that kind of welcome home. He is my running partner and motivater. It’s a lot easier to get up and go at 5:30 or 6am if I know that he is waiting for me, super enthusiastic to go running. And I think theres something about caring for another being – giving him food and washing him, ect, that adds to feelings of mutual affection. I know that he needs me, and I need him, too. Anyway, bottom line is that I love my dog. And to know that he was gone was overwhelming.
Where we lived before it might not have been so scary. But we live in the city now. Three sides of our neighborhood are edged by highway type roads with masses of rushing traffic. The fourth side is the river. After he’d been gone a few hours I knew that he must have either gone too far away and couldn’t find his way home, or he had been hurt (or killed) and couldn’t get himself home. For three days I kept imagining him with broken legs, huddled on the ground somewhere, starving to death. I went out searching for him, looking everywhere but also scanning the trash piles and open sewer canals to see if there might be a furry mass there. It was unbearably sad for me, and I was surprised at how much Jean-Patrick was affected as well. When an insensitive friend asked “oh well… will you get a new dog?” JP replied with “I don’t want a new dog, I want Teddy.”
I think the hardest part was just not knowing. If we knew he was dead we could have closure and stop wondering and waiting and hoping for him to come home.
Saturday morning I worked on making a LOST DOG poster and JP took it to the photocopy shop. I glued over 20 of them onto cement electric poles at busy corners of the neighborhood. I wanted to know that we had done all we could do.
Someone called on Sunday morning saying they thought they saw Teddy the night before. (That’s not really very helpful, is it?) JP went to meet them and of course Teddy wasn’t around. I doubt that it had been our dog because it wasn’t that far from the house and I know he could find his way home from there. Also, there are all sorts of dogs roaming the streets all the time here, and they all look pretty similar.
Throughout the three awful days we did a lot of praying. Pretty much every night as a habit when we do bedtime prayers we ask God to protect us and our animals and our house. But this was different. I prayed many desperate prayers with tears asking God to please not let Teddy suffer, and if he was still alive to please send angels to guide him home. JP and I had discussions about why God allows bad things to happen, and about how we know that God is still Good no matter what, and that it wouldn’t be too hard a miracle to bring Teddy back to us. My hope was running out though.
On Sunday night I picked up Teddy’s cushion, where he always lounges around in the house, and I hid it under our bed. I didn’t want to look at it anymore.
At 2:45am on Monday morning I woke up hearing dog whining sounds and I jumped up and shouted out the window, “Is it Teddy?!” The guard replied that it was Teddy, so we hurried to open the door. The guard said that 2 young guys brought the dog (at 2:45am?!) to the gate and said he’d been with them for the last 2 days. The guard had been spreading the word about the dog being missing and they said they knew where to bring him back to without needing to call the phone number on the posters. (sounds a bit sketchy to me, I mean really, 2:45am?! And then the next evening they came by to ask for money… sounds like a dog-napping kind of.) Anyway, Teddy was thankfully not hurt and seemed to have been fed. He was filthy and stinky, as though he had played in the open sewers and then slept in puddles of sheep pee. I gave him an extreme bath and took care of that. I don’t understand it all but I’m just so glad he got home, really an answer to our prayers, and I think a miracle.
“Jean-Patrick! Teddy’s not here!” I shout-whispered into the bedroom window. I went to the gate door to see if Teddy was in the street. He wasn’t.
I went out into the street shouting for my dog and I did a 10 minute jog looping the immediate area calling and scanning for him as I went. I was expecting him to come bounding around a corner at any second. I went back home to let JP know I hadn’t found him yet. This wasn’t normal. JP talked to the night guard who prowls around our building and the neighboring one all night. He said he had seen the dog for sure at 5am but wasn’t sure after that. Someone must have left the gate door unlatched and the dog got out and went for an adventure.
I did a longer search on foot, and JP went out on the motorcycle to call and look before he had to leave for school. We didn’t find Teddy but we were hoping that he would show up at home at any moment.
By that afternoon I was in tears, and my heartache continued for 3 long days.
If you are not a dog lover you might not understand this very well. Let me try to explain.
Teddy is not just some animal to me, he is my buddy. He keeps me company when I am home alone, and he serves as my personal security service by barking if anyone comes near the door. If I come back to the house after being away, even for a short time, Teddy reacts like a kid on Christmas morning. You can’t help but feel happier when you get that kind of welcome home. He is my running partner and motivater. It’s a lot easier to get up and go at 5:30 or 6am if I know that he is waiting for me, super enthusiastic to go running. And I think theres something about caring for another being – giving him food and washing him, ect, that adds to feelings of mutual affection. I know that he needs me, and I need him, too. Anyway, bottom line is that I love my dog. And to know that he was gone was overwhelming.
Where we lived before it might not have been so scary. But we live in the city now. Three sides of our neighborhood are edged by highway type roads with masses of rushing traffic. The fourth side is the river. After he’d been gone a few hours I knew that he must have either gone too far away and couldn’t find his way home, or he had been hurt (or killed) and couldn’t get himself home. For three days I kept imagining him with broken legs, huddled on the ground somewhere, starving to death. I went out searching for him, looking everywhere but also scanning the trash piles and open sewer canals to see if there might be a furry mass there. It was unbearably sad for me, and I was surprised at how much Jean-Patrick was affected as well. When an insensitive friend asked “oh well… will you get a new dog?” JP replied with “I don’t want a new dog, I want Teddy.”
I think the hardest part was just not knowing. If we knew he was dead we could have closure and stop wondering and waiting and hoping for him to come home.
Saturday morning I worked on making a LOST DOG poster and JP took it to the photocopy shop. I glued over 20 of them onto cement electric poles at busy corners of the neighborhood. I wanted to know that we had done all we could do.
Someone called on Sunday morning saying they thought they saw Teddy the night before. (That’s not really very helpful, is it?) JP went to meet them and of course Teddy wasn’t around. I doubt that it had been our dog because it wasn’t that far from the house and I know he could find his way home from there. Also, there are all sorts of dogs roaming the streets all the time here, and they all look pretty similar.
Throughout the three awful days we did a lot of praying. Pretty much every night as a habit when we do bedtime prayers we ask God to protect us and our animals and our house. But this was different. I prayed many desperate prayers with tears asking God to please not let Teddy suffer, and if he was still alive to please send angels to guide him home. JP and I had discussions about why God allows bad things to happen, and about how we know that God is still Good no matter what, and that it wouldn’t be too hard a miracle to bring Teddy back to us. My hope was running out though.
On Sunday night I picked up Teddy’s cushion, where he always lounges around in the house, and I hid it under our bed. I didn’t want to look at it anymore.
At 2:45am on Monday morning I woke up hearing dog whining sounds and I jumped up and shouted out the window, “Is it Teddy?!” The guard replied that it was Teddy, so we hurried to open the door. The guard said that 2 young guys brought the dog (at 2:45am?!) to the gate and said he’d been with them for the last 2 days. The guard had been spreading the word about the dog being missing and they said they knew where to bring him back to without needing to call the phone number on the posters. (sounds a bit sketchy to me, I mean really, 2:45am?! And then the next evening they came by to ask for money… sounds like a dog-napping kind of.) Anyway, Teddy was thankfully not hurt and seemed to have been fed. He was filthy and stinky, as though he had played in the open sewers and then slept in puddles of sheep pee. I gave him an extreme bath and took care of that. I don’t understand it all but I’m just so glad he got home, really an answer to our prayers, and I think a miracle.
-----So
this story happened and was written just before Christmas. The rest of the story is that last week, just
3 weeks after going missing for the first time, Teddy ran away again! He followed the neighbor kid out the gate at
6am (according to the guard) and took off.
This time he showed up on his own at 5am after being gone 2 whole
days. Again he was unhurt, and this time
not even dirty. He threw up hair and
bones all morning and was fine after a long sleep. Clearly we cannot let him be outside anymore
unless he is chained up.
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