Last night while it was still light Bandido was on the deck but not ready to come in. When I went for him again he was gone. As I have said before, Bandido has only gotten off the deck once in the past year and that is when the snow was as high as the deck...and yet here he was... gone.
I looked everywhere in the house. Had I let him in and forgotten??? When Mike came home we looked again and again, even under the beds. It was so dark it was hard to see in the yards but I checked back and front over and over again. He was gone...but where?
At 2 am I still l hadn't been able to sleep and Mike was up, too. He drove us around just in case Bandido had been hit by a car or was on the side of the road. Nothing.
Bandido has 4 tags--one with my cell phone and his name, one with my house phone and his name, one with his rabies information and one with his Vet's name and number. I thought if someone had taken him in out of the cold, they would call in the morning. At 9 AM I called the Security...no one had reported a found dog.
I walked all the lots near my home. I had read on the internet about how dogs go off to die by themselves. I looked under all the decks. I walked up and down the street and across the street. Everytime the phone rang I thought it will either be good news or bad news but sooner or later he has to be seen and someone will call. There are not too many in the LAAC this time of year. Most are summer homes so it could be awhile.
But at about 4 pm the call came. Mary at Security in a cheerful voice said I would find Bandido laying on the beach at such and such a number on Peninsula. After I hung up I thought he must be dead or why would he just be laying there? But she did sound cheerful. I realized Mike had my car so asked my neighbor to drive me down.
When we got there my neighbor talked to the man of the house and I walked directly to the beach behind their house. I could see him laying in a fluffy ball, not moving, and I started to cry. But when I walked up to him I could see he was shaking like a cold leaf but when I wrapped him in my towel he cuddled up and perked up and got more perky as we neared home.
After a long drink and good food and some warm cuddling he was soon walking around acting very normal but inspecting everything and he looked very comforted to be home. He keeps going back to eat and eat, he must have used a lot of energy last night.
When I later tried to take him for a walk or even use the run he did not want to. He was either very tired or afraid, I am not sure which. Since Bandido cannot see very well or hear very well it must have been very frightening for him to walk all the way from my house at the top of the peninsula down to the east shore of the peninsula. We will never know why or how he did it...his left leg slips out from under him quite often and he walks in circles a lot. No wonder he was so tired. It is a lot further than I could have walked, that is for sure. Mike thinks he was interacting with the raccoons...we will never know.
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| When we moved here 13 years ago. |
At least for now, he has another lease on life and deserves a lot of cuddling, we better go see Dr. Bob and see what we can give him in comfort for his last days. Hard to believe Richard and I picked him out of a litter 16 years ago in November, just before Richard died. He has been a good, good friend to me.