Running Free

Yesterday was a bit of a stressful day. It started out okay, and I had high hopes for a nice day of General Conference watching, but apparently Luna had other plans of for our day. Lately Kevin has been working on off the leash training with Luna. She does pretty well, and if she does run, she is pretty easy catch. 

However, yesterday as she took off running, she decided to take a different route through the houses.  (Ironically there is only one set of houses that does not have a fence on our entire street.) We kind of waited for a minute because we assumed she would be right back. Kevin called for her, but she didn’t come. She just seemed to be gone.

This was around 8:30 in the morning, and I was still barefoot and in my pajamas, so there wasn’t much I could do. I ran into the house, grabbed my flip flops, and jumped in my car. We spent the next little bit driving around, but saw nothing. Then Kevin dropped me off, and I walked around the neighborhood while he drove.  As is my usual, I quickly got blisters from my flip-flops, so I ended up walking around barefoot and in my pajama bottoms that kept sliding down. Plus, I had on my glasses, so I couldn’t really see well between their dirtiness and the sun. I eventually gave up and went back home so I could change and put in my contacts. Kevin came home shortly later. I didn’t end up going out on foot again, but we drove around the neighborhood pretty frequently until about 2:30 pm.

Throughout the day, I had been trying to post a lost dog posting on the animal control site (I also posted on Facebook and KSL.), but it wasn’t working. I had looked at the found dog listings in the morning, but not too well. Around 2:30 I was checking out the Animal Control site again, and found this post:
 

I am an unaltered female, brown brindle Boxer.
You will find me in kennel TRUCK.
I have been at the shelter since Mar 31, 2012.

County Shelter - 511 W 3900 S ID# A372249

I got really excited and immediately called the number for dispatch. It ended up being the general dispatch for the police, which wasn’t very helpful, so we just jumped in the car and headed for the pound. It ended up being quite a ways from our house, so it was kind of an agonizing drive because we were both hoping that Luna would be the brindle Boxer, We finally got there, and a guy led us to the back of the building, and we saw a boxer, who immediately began to waggle her butt in happiness. We had found our fugitive. Fifty-seven dollars later we were able to bail her out and take her home. She was super excited to see us, but she was also super tired from her day long adventure and spent a lot of the afternoon sleeping.

It affected me a lot more than I ever thought it could. I was a mess all day, and poor Kevin had to deal with my breakdowns, meltdowns, and angry outbursts. It just seemed so surreal. Luna has become an integral part of our home, and I was devastated that she might be gone forever. I am grateful for the power of prayer, even if we didn’t find her immediately, but I did feel much calmer and hopeful after awhile. I think my over protective dog parenting might go up a notch now, hopefully I don’t smother her too much. And hopefully she never decides to go on an adventure by herself again. That is just way to much stress for me and our marriage.