Tales from the 3rd Trimester Volume 1: The Day my Dog Returned From the Dead

On a Thursday morning in August I let my first born, my nine-year-old chocolate lab mix,  out for her supervised visit to the backyard. Although she’d been surprisingly well behaved since the move, we knew the house we bought was not “Lucy friendly.” Meaning it wasn’t meant to keep a dog capable of jumping six-foot fences contained. Few yards are but she could easily clear the three-foot fence in our new, much smaller yard and the neighborhood is crawling with dog bait – bunnies.   

   Hundreds and hundreds of bunnies. Evil little bunnies that on this August morning proved too much temptation for my spastic dog. She jumped the fence and took off after one running west up the dirt road and around a garage.  Being 6.5 months pregnant at the time, I did not give chase but instead woke Court so he could go get her back, enticing her back with a tennis ball. But she was nowhere to be seen. Gone.

  We called the humane society, we posted an ad on Craig’s list, we combed the neighborhood. Days went by. And each day I couldn’t stop my brain from imagining some horrible new way my dog died.

  I heard the coyotes and knew Lucy was attacked by the pack. I saw the circling hawks and knew she had broken an ankle in a field and they were waiting for her to die to pick her bones.  I heard the train, I heard the traffic. You get the idea. For 15 days I pictured over a dozen ways my dog met a tragic and lonely death. 

  Day 15 was a Friday and I passed her dog bowls vowing to put them away that weekend.  Accepting she was gone and that I would never know exactly how she met her end.

  But as impossible as it seemed, that morning at work I got a call from Court letting me know our crazy dog was alive. A lady called after seeing her picture on Craig’s list and said she thought our dog was in her yard. Three blocks from our house.

  She lost seven pounds but other than that was absolutely fine. She did have a look in her eyes for the first few days back that seemed to say, “I’ve seen things.” And what I would give to hear her stories or to have had a GoPro on her. But although I’ll never know what she did on her two week walk about I’m sure glad my first little girl is home safe, still scared of the wind and now leashed on all outdoor visits.