lost and found

the escapee

on sunday, charlie escaped.

he decided that the lady walking by the boyfriend’s mom’s condo with her baby in a stoller and leashed dog posed a threat to him and to the entire family and he needed to be the brave hero and save us all from… i don’t know.  but he did.

so he pushed the screen door open with his little flat face (someone *ahem* had not closed the door completely) and made a break for it.  the neighbor in the townhouse across the way apparently saw the fight my little a-hole dog was picking and managed to somehow capture him and put him in her fenced backyard.  i didn’t know any of this was going on as i was upstairs in the boyfriend’s room watching it’s always sunny in philadelphia dvds while indulging in my greatly deserved, in my opinion… and probably only in my opinion, sunday afternoon nap.  it wasn’t until my cell phone started ringing over and over (i ignored the first call because the caller id revealed a 1-866 number which i assumed to be a d-bag phone salesman hell bent on ruining my coveted sunday nap), but then i saw that this strange number had left a voicemail which i still chose to leave for later since i again assumed it was probably just blockbuster harrassing me about returning a dvd that, yes, is severely overdue, but honestly who the hell cares– blockbuster’s probably going the way of circuit city and tower records anyway so fuck off.  but then my dad’s name flashed on the screen and i love my daddy and don’t ignore his phone calls so i answered and dad said that home again pet recovery (the people whose microchip lives in my precious pooch’s neck fat) had called the house to alert me that charlie had been found.  well, i didn’t know charlie had been lost so the idea that he had been found seemed ludicrous and i immediately ran downstairs and interrogated the boyfriend about where the fuck is the dog, when was the last time you saw my dog and what do you mean you don’t know??!!

panic quickly replaced any semblance of rational thought even though the reality of the situation was that charlie had already been recovered- someone had already found him and called the home again people with his id number which he wears on a little yellow tag on his harness.  however, this fact did not comfort me.  rather i chose the hysterical mother whose child has been kidnapped and the kidnappers have just called to make their ransom demands route and acted accordingly: nutso.  i pretty much just hung up on my dad without thinking and tried with shaking hands through ragged sobs to dial the home again number from my voice mail, which had told me to select option 1.  well, i kept hitting 1 until the button practically jammed and i finally (it felt like minutes but it was literally seconds) got connected to an operator who i told my story to and charlie’s id number.  he then connected me to the lady who had charlie and i tried my best to keep calm as we spoke but my voice wouldn’t stop shaking and i was starting to panic even more because as the panic rose my irrational brain began to send me messages that this woman was not the good guy– she was the bitch who stole my fucking dog.

i wandered out the front door sort of aimlessly looking for the townhouse she said she lived in but i don’t live in the damn community so her telling me in her bitchy, exasperated, just-come-get-your-asshole-dog voice that she lived in townhouse number 2 wasn’t exactly helpful.  for all i knew townhouse number 2 could have been on frickin mars.  but this pretentious bitch acted like i must be a grade-a moron not to know exactly where her precious townhouse was located.  as it turned out, it was literally maybe 50 feet away.  i made the boyfriend go the door because by now i was not only puffy eyed, hysterical and barefoot (a la amy winehouse minus the crack addiction and enormous beehive), but also pissed off at this woman… that may have been an irrational reaction, but at the moment i couldn’t care less.

i. just. wanted. my. dog. back. now.

he did so and was led to the neighbor’s fence door and out came charlie all la-dee-dah, like, “oh hey guys what’s crackin?”  the boyfriend placed my beloved pug in my arms and i clutched him to my chest, buried my face in his neck and bawled.  i didn’t even take one look at the woman who pretty much saved my dog before rushing back into the house with my baby, ran upstairs to the boyfriend’s bed and sat rocking my dog back and forth in my arms while i cried and cried and kissed and hugged him until he started to wriggle, which made me squeeze him even tighter.  finally, i let him go, he gave me a look like i had lost my mind, which i guess i had for a while, and ran back down the stairs.

the whole thing lasted about 10 minutes.

i curled onto the bed and wept because i felt like part of my soul had been torn from me and because i knew that the whole thing could have gone down so differently.  what if someone had taken charlie’s harness off since he was just in the house and didn’t really need it on?  what if the dog he fought with (it wasn’t until the next day that i realized he had dried blood in his fur from a small puncture, probably from the other dog’s tooth, on his neck… it’s probably best that i didn’t notice the injury until the following day or it might have thrown me into another hysterical fit) had mauled my little dog who thinks he’s much bigger than he is?  what if that lady hadn’t called the home again service and just kept him or sold him?  what if he had run away farther to the busy street and been hit by a car?  what if i hadn’t gotten him back so soon, or not at all?

i’ve thought about the reality that dogs don’t live forever and wondered how i’m going to handle charlie’s eventual death (knock on wood, cross my fingers that that will not be for at least 10 to 15 years from now)… this incident suggests that i may not handle it so well.  i will most likely become a basketcase for at least a month, possibly requiring sedation or at least heavy doses of very strong anti-depressants.

so, yeah, luckily everything turned out fine, panic wasn’t exactly necessary, but for those minutes that i knew my dog was not with me i felt my life crashing around me.  i mean i always knew i loved my dog, but now i see how deep that love and devotion runs.  i need him.  he’s a source of comfort, a snuggle buddy, a friend i can talk to who always looks at you with sympathetic eyes.  dogs love you unconditionally and i realized that day how much i loved his squished face and bulgy eyeballs and the way he sneezes right in your face.  i never want to feel like that again, but i know i can’t be with him 24/7 and that someday i may have a new reason to panic.  hopefully next time i will not hyperventilate, but rather approach the situation more like the boyfriend who remained cool as a frickin cucumber, although at the time i accused him of not caring enough about the dog, but he was right because really he was never lost.

and i, for the first time in many many months, shot a little prayer up to god, thanking him for bringing my baby home safely.  and that microchip was the wisest investment i have ever made in my life.  if it weren’t for home again, well, i don’t want to think about that.  but thanks home again.  and neighbor lady i will bring you flowers this weekend to say thanks for rescuing my dog from a fight and getting him back to me, where he belongs.