Mulkie Fraggle, come!

This post is about lessons learned.

Every morning, I wake up and let the dogs outside. I used to stand at the front door and watch them go about their business, and then call them back inside. Lately, I've been letting them outside for 20 or 30 minutes and then call for them and they come back in. They like to play, so I figured, hey, what's the harm, right? They're pretty good about staying in the yard.

Well, this morning, I let them out, like I always do, and came back inside for awhile. I then went to the door to let them back in and called, and Mazda came running. No Mulkie Fraggle. So I kept calling, and calling, and calling...still no Mulkie Fraggle.

I woke up Cody and we went searching. It had snowed yesterday, so we could follow the tracks. I talked to our neighbors, and Jean, next door, said that Mulkie had been on her porch this morning. So much for staying in the yard!

We came back inside and waited and called every few minutes, hoping she'd come home. I am a bad dog owner and didn't have her collar (with tags) on (I had just taken it off to give her a bath over the weekend). So finally, we got back in the Subie and went searching some more. We drove down Edwardsville Drive, stopped the guy from Atmos checking gas meters and asked him to keep an eye out. We saw an Edwardsville cop stopped on the side of the road checking for speeders and asked him to keep an eye out. We drove all the way to Camp Naish, just in case she went that far. We stopped at Ani Pals, the pet resort just up the road, thinking she may have wandered there because of the smell of other dogs. We stopped at another neighbor's house and talked to him, too.

Finally, we just decided to drive back home, and there she was, standing in Jack and Jean's driveway. ARRRGGGHHH!! I was so glad to see her! I really thought that she had run away for good, or been picked up by somebody who thought she was pretty and took her because she didn't have a collar. Thank goodness we found her! She's still in trouble for running away and will be spending some time in her kennel and will go outside on her leash.

Whew...that was enough stress for a Wednesday morning! Needless to say, I will NOT ever let the dogs out unsupervised again! Well, at least until we install our Underground Fence system...is it springtime yet?