Lost Dog

I love my dogs of course, but I don't consider them to be my kids or the same as my own children. I didn't give birth to them. I can't hold actual conversations with them. I don't wonder who they'll be or how they'll turn out as adults. I realize I will most likely outlive all of them. Still I do worry when I send one of my fosters off to a new home, in much the same way I feel when I send my kids off to a new situation: I hope they will be happy and well cared for.

I don't think losing a dog is comparable to losing a child. I can't imagine a worse hell on earth than a missing child. I'm finding out though, a missing dog isn't easy either. Haven escaped on her "trial run" adoption. Long story short, she's been loose in Marblehead for a week now. We went last Sunday and looked for her and put up signs. We didn't hear anything for a week, then over the weekend got a few calls from people who saw her, so I went back out today and walked around for almost 3 hours. And didn't see her at all.

Marblehead's a really small town and she seems to be staying in the same general location. Still you can only walk up and down and around and through people's yards and look along the lake and under bushes and in abandoned garages so many times over and over until it's clear you're going to drive home again without her. I don't know how long she can stay out there like this. I'm sure she can get water and some food. I can't imagine how scared she must be. I don't know what will happen. I'm an hour and a half's drive away so even if I could leave as soon as someone calls, she's going to be gone. And I can't keep driving out there. All I can do is hope she lets someone else catch her.

I've said it before--even when it wasn't actually about me personally--that it's so unfair that the people who do everything they can to find their dog and get it safely back home so oftentimes never see him or her again. And then the pounds are full of dogs with owners who never put up a sign or ran an ad or gave the dog a second thought once it left the yard....