Missing Dog

I sat in the upstairs bedroom of the dark house reviewing the User's Manual for my new Canon 40D. Into the heavy silence, my phone vibrated and I reached for it. A few seconds later I was tiptoeing quickly down the stairs and towards the front door, trying to make as little noise as possible. The girls were asleep. I opened the door to a beaming Cameron, and crossed the threshold to hug him. He picked me up, kissed my head, and swung me back across the threshold. As he placed me on the floor I whispered, " Shh, the girls are asleep." I pointed to the lofted corridor above our heads. A door opened onto a dark bedroom that was lit from within by the soft pink light of a nightlight. I was spending the night with the girls that I nanny for. Their mother was away on a business trip. We tiptoed our way back to my upstairs bedroom, Cameron exaggerating his movements the whole way because he knew I would laugh at him.

"Here it is," I said, picking up the camera by the lens and handing it over. He took it almost reverently and studied the back that I had pushed toward his face. I showed him the on/off switch and a few of the other major buttons and then left him to discover the rest for himself, or at least to ask me; we both preferred to do things on our own. We were browsing through the photographs I had taken that day when his phone beeped. He looked at it then said, "Do we have Teeki?" We looked at each other quizzically. "It's my mom. She can't find Teeki."

Thus began one of the most harrowing nights of my recent life. Teeki was our dog. I had gotten her from a backyard breeder almost exactly a year before and although Cameron had been upset that I had done it without including him in the decision, he had quickly capitulated under her soft, brown puppy-gaze and now considered her his own. And, because I had pushed her towards him in those early months, so that he would love her and accept her, months later I sometimes wonder if she doesn't have a stonger bond with him than she does with me.

Calls were made. We called Cameron's mom. Cameron's dad called us. Cameron's brother texted us. A friend of the family who made no secret of the fact that they wanted to steal Teeki from us texted me, worried. There was a tight little circle of worry that night. Turns out, Cameron's sister, who lives an hour away and has a new baby and thus was the only person NOT notified of Teeki's disappearance, had a dream that Teeki went missing and came back the next morning.

The thing was, Teeki had run off before, always to explore and always returning within an hour or so. We lived on a dog-friendly street in a neighborhood where two or three people were out walking their dogs at any given time of the day. So we didn't worry about her. But this time was different. This time, she didn't have her collar on. This time, it was 11 pm and she had not returned. After Cameron left, I began to obsess. What if she explored too far away this time and a cruel person found her? Or someone found her and decided to keep her for their family? What if she had been hit by a car with a mean driver who wouldn't report it and then I'd have to spend the rest of my life wondering what happened?! I thought that I could never have children if the pain was this bad just for a missing dog. How much worse must it feel as a parent with a missing child? I couldn't even imagine. I felt that falling asleep would be a betrayal of her. Why should I get a good night's sleep in a soft, comfortable bed, my guilt-riddled mind thought, while she was wet and cold (though it was definitely a warm, dry Georgia summer night) and most likely injured, lying half-covered by underbrush in a ditch?

So I set about researching the best methods for getting her back. I foraged through the internet. I sent links to Cameron's inbox. I made a composite poster of Teeki photos.

The next morning, I woke up with a start, jumped out of bed, unloaded the girls at school, and drove home. I then commenced to printing out 5 full-color posters and 30 flyers before Cameron's mom called with the good news; she had found Teeki. A neighbor had taken her in the night before and told all of the neighborhood moms that morning about the dog she had found. I hurried to the neighbor's house to collect my sweet, precious, uninjured, very-much-alive baby. She's back home with us now and her mommy and daddy agree that she is never, even for a moment, to go without a collar again.