The Team that Helped my Dog Find Home

My favorite part of Episcopal morning prayer is the Great Thanksgiving at the end. I go to my dog Brandy, invariably curled up on the sofa, and pet her while I say the prayer by memory, including these words, "We bless You [Father] for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life," thinking preserve this creature; she is a blessing. Yesterday morning, I was forlorn when I got to that part, because Brandy had been missing 36 hours.

A few hours later, she found home. I'm reflecting on the team of people who helped Brandy to reach that happy ending.

Professional dog sitters Diane and Renee had taken turns caring for Brandy while I was out of town. Visiting on Saturday evening, Renee challenged "a random guy" walking up my driveway who claimed he got lost in woods behind my home. That was plausible; there was a party nearby, and alcohol may have been involved. Renee spent quality time with Brandy and left. There was no reason to think that the man had climbed the privacy fence and opened the gate from inside. The next morning, when Brandy was missing, Renee descended to Brandy's playground where she found the gate ajar.

After Diane and Renee contacted me, they posted "LOST" signs all over the area. They posted her photo online. They put on boots and long pants to search the woods for signs of Brandy. On my front porch they put out Brandy's bed with water and food in case she came back when no one was home. When I arrived, we hoped my voice would draw Brandy out of hiding.

Phone tips indicated that Brandy had cut through the woods to the main road, one leg of a circuit she and I walk often. Because cars speed by on that road every minute, I always tell Brandy, "Look both ways." She does; we wait for any cars to pass, then trot across. I've always hoped, if Brandy ever got away, that she would follow that circuit all the way home.

Saturday, she evidently was doing just that when she ducked under the guard rail to follow her nose into another neighborhood.

Diane, Renee and I searched the woods behind homes where she had been sighted. Diane kept encouraging us with happy scenarios she imagined. She fearlessly rapped on doors, even in the sketchy compound of five homes where people seem to be raising chickens and growing something illegal. Diane's husband Dave brought us water and sandwiches -- talk about preservation and blessing! I hadn't eaten all day -- and we searched nearly to dinnertime.

David and Diane

After worrying through a rainy night, I cut short my morning routine. Donning shoes without Brandy's eager anticipation of the day, going to the kitchen without her running ahead, putting food out for the squirrels without Brandy snatching up the stray peanut -- these just made me sad. I skipped everything else to search instead.

An early search turned out to be a great idea. I left my car parked with a "LOST" poster in the window. Parents and kids passing by me on their ways to work or school saw the leash and empty collar as I called her name. I was a walking advertisement, and that paid off a little later.

Discouraged after nearly two hours, I was heading back to my car, planning to search the county dog pound, when a young woman in a car stopped to take me where she had seen Brandy not half an hour earlier.

Now I knew that Brandy was still in the vicinity, great news. But the woman had seen Brandy run southeast. Two blocks east was the familiar two lane road and our neighborhood; but two blocks south was a busy six lane highway.

I received three calls in rapid succession. Brandy had exited the subdivision; she had re-crossed the two-lane road; she was trotting along the right side of the road going north, the direction of our neighborhood. I texted the news to Diane. Far from my car, I was running -- not my forte -- when the best tip of all came from a man whose property Brandy has watered many many times. She'd gone through his yard towards our street.

I called her name from the top of the cul-de-sac where we live at the bottom of the hill and she came out into the yard, ears perked. She ran to me, tail between her legs -- happy but sheepish? -- and Diane arrived with food.

Diane served Brandy her first meal, moments after recovery.

Diane did two things I wouldn't have thought to do. First, she took us to a DIY pet grooming salon for a bath. Brandy had somehow spent the night in the woods during a storm without getting wet or dirty, but Diane knew that mites and poison ivy oils might be in that fur. Then Diane set up an appointment for the vet to check Brandy for dehydration and any signs of injury. Renee, overwhelmed with joy and unable to speak when Brandy showed up, dropped in at the vet's to welcome Brandy back. The vet discovered that Brandy does indeed have an abrasion on one paw, now being treated with an ointment.

I'm glad that I took some time to send photos of the happy homecoming to the people who contacted me with tips. Many wanted more details; one person wrote that now her six-year-old was relieved, and another wrote, "You've made my wife's day!"

From them all, I've learned to snap a photo of LOST posters when I see them, so that I'll have the number handy if I can report a sighting.

• See my page Loving Dogs for links to articles about Brandy, with pictures, along with articles about other dogs in literature and in my life.
• Accessible Poem (for Brandy) is my poem about one of Brandy's endearing peculiarities, finished the day Brandy was almost lost to me.

Diane filmed these first minutes after Brandy's homecoming.

Brandy's Aunt Susan brought a peanut-butter filled bone.