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Ruralite Cafe: Published 7/06/00By Lisa Majors-DuffCan you help me find my dog? |
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My daughter and my dog have the same color hair - a beautiful shade of blond-red-orange. When the two of them roll around on the floor, it's sometimes hard to tell which is which.
But what's hard now is explaining to my 6-year-old, an only child, why her companion of the past four years is not waiting on the front porch for her when she comes home from school. Not long after I told Chris Tyson at the animal shelter that I was in the market for a dog, he called with a description of one he thought would be perfect for me and my family. Tess's original owner had moved into an apartment in Cullowhee that would not allow dogs. She was young, Chris said, and already fixed. It was hard to know for sure what breed (or breeds) she was, but he guessed she was at least some combination of chow and collie. She had the long red hair and pointed snout of a collie, but the turned up tail and stocky body of a chow. If I could get the owner to release her, I could have her that day, he said. Pound puppies make the best dogs, I'd always been told, and Tess-Tess (her nickname) was no exception. Sure, she had her faults - like cutting her baby teeth on Niki's toys and chasing my cat. But some of her habits I originally thought were faults - like barking at everything that moved or jumping on the furniture - turned out to be highly beneficial. Her barking keeps most of the bad critters out of the yard, and nothing gets Niki out of bed quicker in the morning than wet dog kisses. We started letting Tess off her lead during the winter when fewer folks were driving on our road. She had put on a few more pounds than the vet recommended and needed to run. She was bad not to mind when we called her back into the yard, but eventually she got the idea it was better to stay near home. We never let her run unless we're home to watch her, but that didn't matter this weekend. Greg was working around the house Saturday, while I went to town to get ready for the town's Fourth of July celebration. When I returned, he informed me that he hadn't see Tess since about lunchtime. "She was in the yard one minute, and the next minute she was gone," he said. Then came the road riding and the neighbor calling, neither of which has turned up anything so far. How does a 60-pound dog vanish in broad daylight without a trace, I keep asking myself? Tess loves to ride, and an open car door is one of my tricks for getting her to come home. If anyone stopped to check on her, she would have gladly jumped in, not caring a thing about the vehicle's final destination. Above and beyond everything else, I hope she finds her way home. This result would make me and Greg happy and dry up Niki's tears. If this is not possible, I hope she makes friends with rich folks from somewhere up north because her thick coat would make living hard any farther south. |
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