Sing and dance! Miracles abound! *squee*
If you want to hear about the really insane few days I've had, click on the cut. ;)
The past few days have been seriously hellish for me and my parents. On Wednesday, one of our dogs, Fred, didn't come home after he'd been out running. We kept yelling and yelling, but couldn't find him, until Wednesday night, we heard him crying in one particular area. By then it was so dark that Mother, the neighbors that joined the search, and I couldn't get around, so we had to wait until the next day to continue searching.
We didn't find him the next day, and just kept hoping that if someone picked him up, he was being taken care of. We put fliers up, and even had a note ready to go in the local paper.
Today, I spent the late morning, early afternoon cleaning the house for Christmas while Mother went to the grocery. We were supposed to spend the rest of the day baking cookies, but Dad wanted to go back out and look one more time. Not twenty minutes later, Dad came back, yelling that they'd heard Fred whimpering and crying in the same area we'd heard him in for the past few days. So, I changed and went flying back outside into the woods.
We searched and searched, and every time we heard him, we followed the sound to the exact same spot: a clearing that had a huge cement slab, an old bottom of a silo. We'd searched it as best we could, having found one area of it where there had been some obvious digging done by dogs, but couldn't find anything. But in the last minutes of daylight, I was half-hysterical, Dad was hysterical, so Mom and I started searching around it again. We went to the opposite side and tried looking under it there, even though there was no sign of Fred having dug himself in there. But low and behold, there he was, about a foot-and-a-half away from us.
I raced out of the woods, had Dad drive me back to the house to grab a shovel as well as rouse the neighbors. Our neighbor from across the street (a really cool guy - used to play with his daughters when we were little) came out, as well as a friend of Dad's. They dug, Mom and I kept talking to Fred to keep him awake. He was so tightly wedged in that he couldn't move to free himself, so we had to dig around him to get the dirt loose enough for us to pull himself out. Finally, after having moved about three-quarters of the dirt around him, he was able to wiggle out and start inching toward us. Dad's friend, Jerry, picked him up and followed me out of the woods. I sat down next to Dad and Jerry put him in my arms and Dad drove us back to the house.
Dad then went back to get Mom while I held onto Fred. Ended up tracking a ton of mud onto my nice clean floor and rug in the living room, so I'll have to wash everything again tomorrow, but I really don't care. My baby's home!
I hadn't mentioned this to anyone before (aside from a few people via email chains we'd had going for a while), mostly because I was trying to prepare myself for the fact that he might not make it back. That's me. I need silence when faced with something like this. It was the same way this past summer, when George died (one of our other dogs).
But this is going to be a great holiday after all. Freddie's home! *squeaks*
The past few days have been seriously hellish for me and my parents. On Wednesday, one of our dogs, Fred, didn't come home after he'd been out running. We kept yelling and yelling, but couldn't find him, until Wednesday night, we heard him crying in one particular area. By then it was so dark that Mother, the neighbors that joined the search, and I couldn't get around, so we had to wait until the next day to continue searching.
We didn't find him the next day, and just kept hoping that if someone picked him up, he was being taken care of. We put fliers up, and even had a note ready to go in the local paper.
Today, I spent the late morning, early afternoon cleaning the house for Christmas while Mother went to the grocery. We were supposed to spend the rest of the day baking cookies, but Dad wanted to go back out and look one more time. Not twenty minutes later, Dad came back, yelling that they'd heard Fred whimpering and crying in the same area we'd heard him in for the past few days. So, I changed and went flying back outside into the woods.
We searched and searched, and every time we heard him, we followed the sound to the exact same spot: a clearing that had a huge cement slab, an old bottom of a silo. We'd searched it as best we could, having found one area of it where there had been some obvious digging done by dogs, but couldn't find anything. But in the last minutes of daylight, I was half-hysterical, Dad was hysterical, so Mom and I started searching around it again. We went to the opposite side and tried looking under it there, even though there was no sign of Fred having dug himself in there. But low and behold, there he was, about a foot-and-a-half away from us.
I raced out of the woods, had Dad drive me back to the house to grab a shovel as well as rouse the neighbors. Our neighbor from across the street (a really cool guy - used to play with his daughters when we were little) came out, as well as a friend of Dad's. They dug, Mom and I kept talking to Fred to keep him awake. He was so tightly wedged in that he couldn't move to free himself, so we had to dig around him to get the dirt loose enough for us to pull himself out. Finally, after having moved about three-quarters of the dirt around him, he was able to wiggle out and start inching toward us. Dad's friend, Jerry, picked him up and followed me out of the woods. I sat down next to Dad and Jerry put him in my arms and Dad drove us back to the house.
Dad then went back to get Mom while I held onto Fred. Ended up tracking a ton of mud onto my nice clean floor and rug in the living room, so I'll have to wash everything again tomorrow, but I really don't care. My baby's home!
I hadn't mentioned this to anyone before (aside from a few people via email chains we'd had going for a while), mostly because I was trying to prepare myself for the fact that he might not make it back. That's me. I need silence when faced with something like this. It was the same way this past summer, when George died (one of our other dogs).
But this is going to be a great holiday after all. Freddie's home! *squeaks*