The next afternoon, we got a worried telephone call - Miss Mia was gone again. Okay, we thought, We've done this before. If we get out there quickly...
But this time was different. Her new owner had taken her out for a walk the night before, figuring "it was quiet enough outside." Five paces out the door, she twisted her way out of her collar and bolted. She returned to the house a short while later, but a group of noisy teenagers on bicycles startled her, then chased her away. Not wanting to bother us after the day's earlier dog-hunt, they waited sixteen hours before throwing in the towel and calling us. It was a case of best intentions complicating things terribly: in that short amount of time, a frightened dog can theoretically travel only a few blocks, or up to 30 miles.
Regardless, we grabbed the intrepid search party from the day before (both two- and four-legged), and set to work. Five hours later, we had scoured all of the nearby woodlands to no avail. Broken-hearted, exhausted but still determined, we slogged our weary way home.
The next two weeks were a frustrating litany of posting flyers and missing pet listings, poring over the intake photos at every animal shelter in a 30-mile radius, and driving to any shelter that had a medium-sized, smooth-coated black female dog (as you could guess, that was pretty much all of them). Sophie even spent a day combing the woodlands again, this time with a couple of wonderful volunteers from a local Search and Rescue group. (Note: They did this as friends, NOT as part of an official search. No dogs were used, just human eyes and voices.) They helped her look - checking every place they could think of where a forty-pound dog could reasonably hide - and lent their keen eyes, level heads, and sympathetic shoulders to lean on when things seemed desperate and futile.
Almost a week later, the phone rang again. "Are you the people who are missing the little black dog? The shy one with the white toes? I think I saw her twice today." A woman had been walking her dog near where Mia had disappeared, and recognized her from the flyers we had put out. Even better, she had been spotted in the same area twice.
At dawn the next day, our dilapidated van rumbled to a halt near the narrow greenbelt where Miss Mia had been spotted. Sophie and Amelia cut north along a wooden fence line that smelled promising; Rufus and I skirted around to the southwest to check a creek lazing its way haphazardly through the wooded area.
About ten to fifteen minutes later, "Team Cornchip" reached the head of the creek. Rufus bounded around distractedly, finally settling near a small cluster of trees in order to relieve himself. Checking my pockets, I came to the maddening realization that Sophie had all of the clean-up bags with her. As Rufus stretched and began shaking off his "just-arrived jitters," I called Team Amelia and crossly discussed the dogs' seeming lack of focus, and the need to coordinate and divvy up the toiletries. We agreed to meet back up, where we'd decide whether to continue with the dogs in tow or not. I hung up the phone, and turned back to Rufus.
Suddenly, his nose shot up in the air. Taking two greedy breaths, he barked sharply. A heartbeat later, he lunged for the creek nearby. As we raced toward the water, there was little doubt he'd caught an exciting scent; exactly what was rustling through the bushes on the opposite bank was still unclear. I called out as we ran, and Rufus called out with me.
Then a pointy black nose popped out of the bushes. It was followed by two round, surprised eyes, and finally a whole dog emerged from the greenery. My heart leaped. And then Mia leaped. Straight into the rivulet between us, and the tangles of greenbriar below.
What followed would have doubtless looked comical from a different vantage point, with me lunging into the creek up to my thighs, desperately trying to extricate Mia with one hand while unsuccessfully trying to keep Rufus from diving in with the other. By the time we all scrambled back up the bank, we were soaked, muddy, and overjoyed. I hugged Miss Mia close to me as I dug in my pack for a slip-leash, and was rewarded with the overpowering smell of skunk musk. Apparently, we were not the first to find her in her leafy hideout.
After a thorough cleaning and a trip to the vet, Mia returned home - to our home. Maybe some day she will have confidence and courage to face the wide world, but that's a struggle she can take at her own pace now, safe in the knowledge that she'll have a home and a family that will always be there when she needs them (human and canine alike).
PS. from Sophie: The other family had already adopted another dog by the time we found Mia. Thus, we formally adopted her ourselves.
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