Sunday, October 17, 2010

Big Damn Heroes


One of Rufus' foster siblings, the shy and timid Mia, was adopted this weekend by an absolutely fantastic family - loving, understanding, patient and good at making timid dogs feel right at home; pretty much an ideal family for her. We brought her over yesterday for an overnight visit to see if she would be a good match for them and their other dog, a happy-go lucky dachshund.

Well, earlier today we got a call: Miss Mia had dashed underfoot, out of the front door and away. They had managed to follow her to a huge field that led into a wooded area. Tim and I leashed up Rufus and Amelia and went to see if we could help find her.

None of our dogs has any real Search and Rescue training, and whenever we hide the squeaky toy around the house, Rufus is the only one who reliably can and will go find it. Nonetheless, we both knew that if anyone had a chance of finding a tiny, scared dog in the middle of nowhere, it would be another dog. But would they focus on her scent - assuming they even encountered it - or would they be distracted by every bug, bit of trash and smelly patch instead?

When we got there, Tim took Rufus, I took Amelia and we gave them Mia's adoption vest to smell. They both eagerly snuffled it for several seconds and then seemed to say, "Okay, we got it." Upon leaving the van, they both lunged ahead, dragging us both at top speed around the outer edges of the wooded area closest to where we parked. Amelia seemed insistent that we check out a private residence hidden at the end of a long driveway, so while Tim and Rufus penetrated deeper into the woods around the creek, Amelia and I went poking around the house which was luckily unoccupied at the time. I had no idea if she was following a particular scent or just being nosy but I had to trust her nose since it was the only tool I had other than my voice to call for Mia.

We then poked around the field a few times, but Amelia seemed to lose steam and become anxious so we crossed the street to look around the apartments a bit. When we crossed the street again, back towards the woods, we saw Mia's adoptive mom also searching along the edges of the woods. She led us over to where they had last seen Mia: a field of tall grass, weeds and flowers dotted by pines. Amelia and I trudged through the flowering weeds and the many, many bees that were pollinating them. Luckily for us, they were busy working, not stinging. Amelia walked purposefully towards the woods again, this time from the western side and into the thick of the trees, compelling me to crawl through on my hands and knees at times and crash blindly through dry, thorny branches to keep up with her. After a bit, she stopped and seemed confused. I was exhausted and sat down to give her some water. Just then Tim called my celphone and asked how things were going. He and Rufus were about a quarter of a mile away from our starting point. We agreed to go get more water soon, since we were both running low, and hung up. I was in no hurry to crawl back out through the thicket, so I sat a bit longer with Amelia. Suddenly, she got very still and craned her neck forward, one paw lifted in uncertainty. I followed her gaze to see a small black face peering out from the scraggly trees.

"Hey, Mia!" I called gently but cheerfully. "It's Emmy! Come on, girl!" Mia crept forward as did Amelia, and they gave each other a sniff and a lick and then Mia just leapt up on us both happily. I opened up the container of Bil-Jac treats for Mia to eat while I tried to hook her leash onto her collar. Amelia jammed her face into the treats and gobbled most of them up. Mia didn't seem to mind. She was just so happy to be rescued.

Once Mia was securely fastened to me via a well-wrapped leash, I called Tim with the happy news, then the adoptive mom, and finally the rescue she was adopted through. Tim told me to just stay there and sing so he could find us, but after several minutes, I decided to just suck it up and deal with the scratches and scrapes.

As we reached the clearing again, I dropped Amelia's leash by accident and she trotted off merrily into the six-foot-high grass, out of sight. I called to her but that didn't seem to stop her, so I started howling as mournfully as I could. She came racing back to us at once.
Back through the bee fields and then we caught sight of Tim. When Mia saw them, she was so happy! Safe at last and hanging out with her old pack.
We took her back to her adoptive parents, and although she was all anxious again, she - and her new family - will be fine. It took her a while to get used to our household and she'll get used to theirs as well. They certainly seem up for the challenge (not at all daunted by Mia's earlier "Great Escape") and are relaxed and happy, which is exactly what she needs. In a few days, I'm pretty sure she'll understand just how lucky she got.

And again, we could NOT have found her without our dogs. Our plain old, everyday, nothing fancy, knuckleheaded hoodlums. They didn't have any special training. They just did what dogs have done for millenia: follow their noses and hope the humans with them will trust them enough to follow those noses as well.