Dumb Luck

While I had a name for my blog, I figured I'd start it, even if I didn't have the time to write anything that day. Maybe I'll make up for that now.

This was a pretty crazy week - like most...

2/27 was a big day in my life. Our dad passed away last May and we finally sold his house, the family home. Mom & Dad were the only ones who ever owned that house - same owners for 54 years. It was the only home I ever knew up to college age.

We picked up a dog the Saturday after Thanksgiving. I've been taking her for long walks 3 or 4 times a week, most weeks. So last week I took her up to the old neighborhood and we walked about 3 miles in about an hour, our usual. It's kind of strange to be wandering the same streets that you wandered as a kid 50 years ago. It was a wonderful neighborhood to grow up in and a lot of great families with great kids to be friends with.

On to the present day. I took our dog for another long walk, a hike into the state park behind our house. Last nights slushy snow still covered everything and I was surprised at how many footprints we found on every trail. I had seen that one more storm was still coming but I hoped it wouldn't be significant. When we got up on the trails it got pretty dark and it started snowing, thankfully, versus raining. We were doing a loop that we've done before and half way through the sun came out and it was quite nice for March 1st.

Sadie isn't well trained (understatement) and I like hiking with her off the leash. It gives us both more freedom and flexibility but if she gets distracted, bang, she's gone. We had one more trail to finish before making the final turn for home and she decided to bolt into the woods. It looked like she might be making a short cut to where the trail was headed so I kept going. Around the bend I saw dog prints in the snow cutting across the path so I assumed she was still heading in my direction.

When I reached the next trail intersection, I started calling her name more. Nothing. Not a sound. In a crowd of footprints, I was all alone. The silence was golden and it's very pleasing to the ears but I would've preferred hearing Sadie's dog tags jingling as she came running towards me. But there wasn't a ripple in the audible pool.

I decided to go back to where she had left me and follow her tracks. I found hers and headed off trail through small evergreens, over dead fall, down rocky slopes, confirmed that they were her tracks that crossed the trail I was on but then it got more complicated. Deer tracks. Lots of deer tracks. Some of the snow got slushier and it was getting harder to tell Sadie's tracks from the deer's. When I reached the final trail toward home and had no alternative, I started down the hill without her. I hoped that maybe she knew her way from there and was far ahead of me while I had wasted all this time circling.

Back at home, no Sadie. I called her name. We all called her name. I called the park ranger's number and asked if anyone had reported a lost dog. He took my name and number but he said there were no notes and he hadn't been approached. I kept staring a the unmoving trees up the hill behind the house. I was hoping to see the familiar reddish-brown streak as Sadie comes charging down the hill. Nothing.

It was now over an hour since I had last seen Sadie. Here's where luck kicks in. The state park has about a half dozen north/south trails and roughly the same number of longer east/west ones. All but one of the east/west trails end at a trailhead up a side street more than a mile from our house. I decided to drive the minivan up there and see if anyone had seen Sadie.

The sun was setting as I raced up the steep road to the trailhead. When I rounded the last bend, I could see a tow truck in the middle of the road in front of the first of 2 cars parked on the right side of the road. A woman about my age, who I assumed to be the owner of the car, was standing off the road on the left side.

I parked behind the rear car and walked up. She commended me on my choice of parking space. There were stones from a low wall where she had parked and somehow she had gotten stuck on them. I told her I was there looking for my dog. Her eyes widened and she asked what kind of dog. I told her a reddish-brown mongrel. "It's a 'she', right?", she asked. "Yes!"

"We've been hiking with her for hours." I couldn't believe my good fortune! Then she said, "But she went back into the woods." Before I could even react to this setback, she yelled, "There she is!" I looked to the edge of the woods and there was a tall, thin, younger woman with a baby in a pack walking with a larger reddish-brown dog. I was about to tell her that that wasn't our dog when I saw another dog right behind them.

"Sadie!" I yelled. She came running but shot right past me to the first woman I was talking to. Then she came running back past me to her other friends and the other dog. I said that it looked like she liked everyone else more than me.

I finally called "C'mon, Sadie" and headed for the van. I think she knew she was in trouble and felt that was the best offer she was going to get. She followed me and jumped in the van when I opened the slider. Once inside, she started barking at the other dog she had just been hiking with.

Unfortunately, I was in a hurry. I would've liked to talk to both these women and find out how Sadie had spent the past hour and a half. I called home and said "I got her" and headed for home.

I have been incredibly fortunate. This was just another example. What were the chances that I would go to the right trailhead at the right time to grab Sadie as she emerged from the woods? She has tags but we still don't have one with our name and number on it. There was a good possibility we would never see her again.

As I admitted, "If you're going to be dumb, it sure helps to be lucky."