Rough Day

My day. Started out good enough. Ya know. Typical weekday morning with getting the kids up, getting them ready for school, and driving them to school. No big deal. We get home (C's been on leave) and I let the dogs outside to do their business. C left to go to the library while I stayed home and read my grammar book. A bit later, C gets home and asks me where the dogs are and I immediately panic knowing that they can't possibly still be in the backyard after being quiet all this time (2 hours have gone by since I let them out). Sure enough, I look out back and the side gate is open and the dogs are nowhere to be seen. The moron lawn care guy didn't lock the gate after mowing last Monday while we were in Ohio. The yard looked great, by the way.

C and I set into immediate action, grab the car keys, and hit the road. We drove around our neighborhood and over to the girls' school to see if they tried following them to school. I'm channeling Lassie at this point. No luck. So we go home and I printed up some cards with our names, phone numbers, and the dogs names on them and I called the town hall and the police department to report them missing. I'm crying, worrying about having to tell the girls that their dogs are gone. C and I figured that someone had dog-napped them. While I'm printing, crying, and phoning, C hiked out to the woods by our house to see if he could find them. No luck there either.

Next, we decided to drive over to the ritzy part of our neighborhood where M's friends live and the dogs have been before to see if they might have decided to go for a visit. We see the mail carrier and ask him if he's seen any boxers running around. Turns out, he'd seen them 15 minutes prior just up the way from where we were. We speed up the road to where the houses are ginormous and have their own docks on the river, shouting BAILEY!! and HANNAH!! and COOKIES!! all the way. We see a contractor walking around and stop to ask him if he's seen our escape artists and sure enough, he'd seen them right over the hill about 5 minutes ago. We decide to park the car and hoof it for a bit but alas, no go again. We headed back to the car to circle the block a few times and finally we hear someone yelling, "I have your dogs!" I immediately speed off in the direction of the voice and low and behold!! There are Bailey and Hannah in the dog flesh looking frothy and worn out from their adventures and with less than an hour to spare before the girls get out of school. Bailey has enough doggie sense to look ashamed and guilty while Hannah's just excited to see us. We got them home and they immediately crashed on the floor completely exhausted. Needless to say, they are grounded for life. They were missing for about 5 hours altogether and we found them about a mile from our house. C and I both agree that the only thing scarier would be if the girls turned up missing. We love our dogs.