I was in Baltimore this past weekend for a conjugal visit. The Perfect Child[sup]TM[/sup] had to work Friday night. When she got home (about 1AM) only one of our dogs was in the yard. Pixel, the dalmatian, was gone.
It’s now Tuesday night. We’ve been to the county pound. I called the Safe Animal Shelter and the Humane Society. I’ve driven around the neighborhood. No Pixel. Every other time she’s escaped, she’s come home within a few hours.
I have a feeling she jumped the fence and headed into the woods behind the house. There have been all sorts of weird animal sounds back there for weeks and it drove her crazy. I fear she met her demise there. I know there are snakes out there, and I’m fairly sure there are gators too, since it’s a wetland conservation area. She could have run too deep into the wooded area and come out on the other side, confused to be in a different neighborhood. Or she could have been hit by a car.
No, she didn’t have a collar on - she kept losing them. She even managed to slip out of her harness on occasion, so she has no ID on her. We have the yard fenced, with extra boards at the bottom to stop the dogs from digging out and an electric wire at the top to keep them from climbing out. I have no idea how she escaped, but she’s gone.
I hope that she either died fast without suffering, or that she came out in the other neighborhood and a nice family took her in. So we’re a one-dog family now. But I miss Pixel.
I have little hope of seeing her again… but on a whim, I’m going to drive thru the neighborhood that’s on the other side of the conservation area.
Oddly enough, Bernie, our other dog doesn’t seem to miss her. In fact, she seems to enjoy being the new alphabitch. It was really difficult at the pound to not look at the other dogs there - I refuse to get another. We decided a few years ago that when our current pets go to their rewards, that would be it for us. So it hurt to ignore the poor, pleading pups who are likely not long for this world.
Oh, no, FCM, that’s terrible! Loving my own two poochies as I do (even though I don’t live in the same house as them any more, stricly speaking), I always get terribly upset when other people lose their pets.
Hope Pixel comes back to you.
[sub]Oh, and you can start checking the mail in another ten days or so, okies? [/sub]
FairyChatMom, that is too sad. A friend of mine who had a similar situation recently had very good luck putting up flyers in the neighborhoods near her home. As happens often, her pup was taken in by some people not long after she got “lost.” It was a few days before they saw her flyers but called her as soon as they saw them. There was a happy reunion. Don’t give up hope yet.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you! Our dog runs off frequently, but we’re in a rural area so we don’t worry as much about him as much as we would in a city. Let us know what happens!
I recently found some lost dogs and I posted a found ad on petfinder.com, at all the local vets, and in the newspaper. Check out petfinder and the vets at least. I hope you find her. The owners of the dogs I found contacted me after a vet tech at their clinic saw my notice.
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