Wanderlust

I've read that some breeds of dogs are great escape artists. Since we have no means of containment Kea has become a wanderer; calling her an escape artist would imply she had to do more than walk away.

And she did. She must have had a grand old time sniffing whatever she wanted for as long as she wanted without me hurrying her. In the book, "Great Dogs, Good Owners" the author calls all of the sniffing "reading the doggy newspaper." Kea loves her some reading.

So our beloved super happy, super wiggly yellow doggy decided this morning would be a good one to freak me out. Ryan went to Lowe's to get something for some home project and on his way out the door he told me he was letting the dog out and to remember to let her back in. Sure thing. About 5 minutes later I went to the front door and poked my head out called her name. Nothing. I called again. Nothing.

I wasn't phased at this point. She likes to poke around the yard and is super slow to come inside. I figured I would catch her being naughty so I walked down the stairs in my bare feet to the sidewalk and over to the alley to see if I could catch her in the act of leaving the front yard.

There was no guilty looking dog in the alley, no dog in the side yard and no dog in the back yard. Uh-oh.

I dashed inside and put on some shoes, grabbed my cell phone and put Gavin in the Ergo baby carrier. Off we went, me in my grungy pink lounge pants and class of '95 ratty sweatshirt, to find the dog.

"Kea!" "Kea!" "Kea!"

Everyone who passed me or was within shouting distance was asked if they saw a yellow dog wandering around. Nope.

Since Ryan left his phone at home I called Lowe's and asked them to page him and have him call home. After what felt like an eternity Ryan called me and I broke the news that Kea was gone. He came home just as Gavin and I were walking back up our street. I hopped on-line and went to petfinder.com, findfido.com and missingpets.com and craigslist. I posted to all three, sent out a duplicate message to my neighborhood listserv and called my vet to have them activate her microchip.

I was getting ready to go to Staples to print out a bundle of flyers when a neighbor 6 blocks away called to tell us they had Kea. Thank God for the tags on her collar! From the time I realized she was gone until she was located was a little over an hour. One very long hour.

Whew.

An hour after that Ryan was at Lowe's buying material for a fence. He's outside installing it right now. Try escaping now, my little doggy!