When Did I Become the Crazy Dog Lady?

We've all heard of that "crazy cat lady." Yep. You have the picture in your mind, I know you do.

Well, I'm pretty sure I've become the crazy dog lady, as of last night. And you can thank those two precious baby dogs of mine, for driving me to this land of insanity.

It started last week. **sigh** Ok, it really started last summer when the tornado hit our house and tore our fence out. It was a couple of weeks until we were able to get the fence rebuilt, so the dogs were staying in the house and we were letting them in and out. BIG PAIN!

Anyway, I've written about this in a previous post, I think, so I'll just say the dogs escaped at one point and I was panicked! Obviously we found them, but ever since then I have been extremely paranoid about the yard situation, and as crazy as this sounds, I seem to have a sixth sense about when they might have gotten out.

Is that weird? Don't answer that.

So, a couple of weeks ago we had dinner with some friends and were gone for about 3 hours. When we came back, the wind had blown the gate (that still isn't truly fixed, but only held closed by a bag of mulch and NOW a bag of feed, but that's another post I probably won't write because it wouldn't be very Godly-wifey of me) open and the dogs were GONE!

Mind you, this was after 10:00 p.m., it was dark, and we were in a tornado watch...seriously.

So, Rich and I head out in separate vehicles, searching, searching. Remember that sixth sense I told you about? Well, I was literally praying aloud as I'm driving, and I just felt like I needed to go home and check the answering machine. No blinking light. But, I decided to check the missed calls, just for grins, not that I really thought someone would call and NOT leave a message. BEHOLD! Someone did.

I called the number back. R-I-I-N-G. R-I-I-N-G. "Bueno." Um....

I asked in VERY broken Spanish/English...Spanglish? if she had my dogs. Turns out she did. We headed over to get them. "Donde esta su casa?" I told you, terrible Spanish. But it got the point across. We live on the NW side of town. They were on Avenue B. SW...I wish I could show you just how far this is...they had to cross 287 (a MAJOR highway), cross the railroad tracks, and then go from Ave. F (aka 287) all the way down to B! Whoa! They were bookin' it, apparently!

And, when we got there, the daughter who speaks perfect English, said a man stopped as they were putting the dogs into their shed, and asked if he could buy them.

And you know what they said? Praise Jesus they replied, "No, we can't sell them, they aren't ours!"

Oh my. I was so grateful and touched by their honesty!

So, the girls were back and mamma was happy again.

Until last night. We took McH's grandmother to Altus for a visit to Long John Silver's, her absolute FAVORITE place to eat! Again, another post, which is guaranteed to make you giggle a little!

We get home around 9:30 and you guessed it...NO DOGS! And again, I'm freaked! But the whole time, I'm trusting God to bring them home. We look EVERYWHERE...in the same place we found them the time before.

Then McH has a thought. Most animals move into the wind because they can smell things that way. If they move with their backs to the wind, they don't have any direction, no scent to follow.

So, we decide to head North and look. And that's what we did, for almost an hour. We looked and called their names and whistled and nothing. Except panic and sadness.

And yes, I know these are DOGS. I reminded myself of that very thing several times. But you must also remember, that for the moment, they hold the place of our children and I pour the emotions I would normally pour into said kids into these two miniature schnauzers, even though as I type that it sounds terribly pathetic. **big sigh**

Anyway, to end the suspense, I did find them and this time it was because I believe they were headed back home or towards my voice and whistles. Because as I turned to do one more lap around the block for posterity's sake, I heard the jing-jangle of their tags, which they ALWAYS wear, and there they were. Happy as ever. Muddy all over. Looking filthy, but they were fine!

I vascillated between hugging and yelling.

And then, I called McH who was still driving around. And I thanked him for helping me because I knew if it was up to him and only him, he would leave the gates open, leave some food on the back porch and hope they come home on their own.

But, he says, "I knew your heart was breaking; that's the only reason I kept looking."

In the words of one dang good, mid-90's, female rap group, "What a man, what a man, what a man, what a mighty good man."

Yep, that's him. And he's mine. Thank you, Lord for sweet puppies, perfect matches, and answered prayers.