Man’s Best Friend

Man’s Best Friend

I hope you will excuse my brief absence.  We’ve had a family ‘issue’ we were dealing with.  Let me explain.

My dog, Suzy, went missing last Thursday.  Even though my garden is like Fort Knox – Jack Russells are the ultimate escape artists and after several years of looking she found a way out.  I got home quite late from meetings and went immediately out on foot and then in the car looking for her.  Family and friends had already pitched in during the day in doing so but I thought it couldn’t hurt to go out again.  I spent a couple of hours walking around calling her name.  No sign.

On advice from an old friend I tried http://www.doglost.co.uk which are a voluntary organisation that help people find lost dogs.  They had some wonderful ideas and were very supportive.  I also called the council and the local kennels.  I have an advantage in that my best friend’s partner is one of the animal officers at Fenland and so I also had her on the case keeping her eyes peeled.  Still no sign.

Friday turned to Saturday and the chance of a “quick find” disappeared.  Suzy is a nervous dog and as such we felt she would be unlikely to let anybody near her and would probably run if they tried to catch her.  This meant that although she was less likely to be stolen or come to harm at the hands of unpleasant people she was also probably being driven further and further away from home.

We signed up with Petsearch, another organisation that does great work – and we made sure the Identichip people knew she was missing so that they could alert us if she was scanned somewhere (as she is chipped.)  We also put up several dozen posters around our local area.  I blogged and tweeted and posted on social networking sites like Facebook and WisbechPeople.

I really want to thank the scores of people who emailed or messaged me to offer their support and best wishes and regrets.  I don’t mind admitting that our family were getting miserable but the kind words helped a lot.  Big Society might just be a buzzword to some but communities come in many shapes and forms and we are grateful to all those who said such kind and supportive things.

On Monday there was a brief flash of hope – although the sheer number of days was beginning to become frighteningly portentious.  A taxi driver called to say he was sure, based on a poster he had seen, that Suzy had been walking down the middle of the Lynn Road on Sunday night.  Sadly, since it was Monday by then she was long gone when we went to look.  But we put up another load of posters in that area anyway.

I love my dogs.  I’m not ashamed to admit it.  Anybody who has dogs know that they become part of the family in a very integral way.  I held it together in order to be strong for my family but i’ve got to say that by late Monday night my faux optimism was wearing very thin.  In fact, with everybody else asleep, I sat in darkness in my living room and just thought: “Well that’s that then.  She’s obviously not going to be returned.”  She’d been gone five days by this point and with stories of her “walking down the middle of the road” I could only begin to admit the worst.  She does not have a great deal of road sense – that’s the problem.

If you’re not a “dog person” then you’re probably thinking – “Huh?  It’s only a dog!”  And that’s okay.  You’ve got to be a dog person to get it.  But even though I was getting pretty melancholy I thought I should give it another try.  I jumped in the car and in the small hours of Tuesday morning I drove around the dark and quiet roads of Wisbech and looked.  And listened.  I was literally willing some miracle stroke of luck to happen and for her to come trotting up to me out of the gloom.  As you might imagine – she did not.  I went to bed at 2AM, resigned to the likely end to this tale which most would guess to be a grim one.

At 5AM this morning Suzy came home.  She woke me up barking outside our window.  She was at the front door. A little shaky and scared.  With irritated footpads from all the running and walking she had been doing.  A little smelly.  A little hungry.  Very, very thirsty.  But otherwise absolutely fine.  I opened the door and let her in.  She was limping a little from the sore feet so I picked her up and carried her upstairs.  I put her in her basket with some water and some food beside her.  She curled up in her soft blanket.  Sighed very heavily.  And went immediately to sleep.

My family and I are very, very happy to see her little face.  Very, very happy.