Our eldest daughter was walking two dogs when one of them, her mini Irish doodle Stella had an interaction with another off leash dog. This caused our daughter to drop her leash and for Stella to take off down the street, dragging it as she went. Our daughter had a small injury on her hand but she and the dog's owner ran off to find her. Stella ran down a busy street and turned the corner and kept running. Then she turned another corner and kept going. Eventually apparently she crossed the street and scratched at the door where another of our daughter's dog sitting friends lived. This little Bichon-Shih tzu cross named Meisha let her owner know that Stella was at the door and they let her in. Meanwhile our daughter had called me on the phone, out of breath and with her hand bleeding. She and the other dog’s owner continued to look for Stella. I ran out of our house and while she secured the third dog, a cute little mini Bernadoodle named Buddy, I started to track Stella using the Apple tag on her collar. I am also hollering Stella at the top of my lungs, having what a friend wittily described as a "Tennessee Williams" moment. Eventually Meisha's human ran out to the end of her driveway to let me know that Stella was safely in her house. All the dogs were reunited with their people and all was well. To make a short story tedious, we did have to find a local and available tetanus shot (Safeway has them) and our daughter was late for work. There were however several valuable lessons to be learned from all this running, panting and shouting:
1. Praying is important and should be done even if at the same time you are running like an idiot down the street with one eye on your iPhone and one eye on the road, shouting your dog's name. Multitasking at its best!
2. Never underestimate the ability of dogs, no matter how cute and small, to help us humans look after them. Perhaps they actually look after us?!
3. In times of need, dogs never forget a friend even if its been months since they've last seen one another. Perhaps we could learn a lesson from our pets in this regard!?
4. Technology is great but in the end, in this case anyway, success was achieved as a result of plain old-fashioned neighbourliness and friendship. Oh, and don't forget prayer!
