And now for something completely different. Here is a story I wrote but have yet to get published. It is about when one of my dogs ran away. Enjoy!

Nina’s Big Adventure

A Puppy in a Pick-up Truck

Nina had a rough life from the start. Sometime in 1999, a clothing retail store employee went out to her truck after a long day and found a puppy. Even though I’ve known Nina for the last few years, I cannot imagine what that scene looked like. I have seen her scared, hurt, uncomfortable, and lonely. Even so, the darkest day of her life is beyond my imagination.

The person whose truck Nina was unceremoniously dumped in could not (or would not) take in a stray, nor would her conscience allow her to just leave her to chance. So she gave her to my sister-in-law, who was a co-worker at the store. My sister in law could not take in a puppy due to the rules of her apartment complex, so she brought the puppy to her parents.

The news reached my wife and I, like news of a broken window or bent fender. It was interesting for a second, but I didn’t think of the puppy for longer than that. Several days later, my wife visited her parents and saw the puppy.

My in-laws had taken her to a vet, where she was estimated to be six weeks old and deemed to be in fine health. They had bought all the necessary comforts a puppy could expect, and were actively seeking a good home for her. My father-in-law had even named her: Nina. There was no real significance to the choice, other than the fact that they are Mexican and the named seemed to fit. In hindsight, there are names that sound Spanish and fit Nina better: Tornado or Bandito come to mind.

When my wife saw Nina, she fell in love. Of course, what kind of Nazi doesn’t fall in love with a little puppy? But this was different. She phoned me immediately. “She looks like Joey,” she said. Joey was my one-year-old German Shepherd/Chow mix I had adopted from the local humane society. I was immediately on-guard. We lived in a 1 bedroom apartment at the time. Worse than that, I worked nights and she worked days. There would be little time or space to take care of a puppy.

Something in Rachel’s voice as she described little Nina to me told me I this was a moment to be sensitive and understanding. So I said I would come over and see her myself.

That sealed the deal. Once that little puppy climbed on me and tried to draw blood with her little needle teeth, I fell in love. I smelled her puppy breath, which reminded me of coffee and chocolate, and decided we would find a way to make it work.

Nina Grows Up

I grew up with several dogs, and have had many friends who had dogs. But I had never had experience with raising a puppy. So perhaps she was just an average puppy, but we began to think her father was Satan himself. She kept my wife up all night, and then kept me up during the day. She shredded everything. She ate everything. The world (and my carpet) was her toilet. She always wanted to play, and play rough.

Poor Joey was such a patient big brother, but I know there were times he looked at her and wondered what she would taste like. She would climb on him and bite his ears and bark in his face. If he ever gave chase, she would run under the bed or something else that he couldn’t fit under. It was funny the day that she found she had grown too large to dive under the bed and got herself stuck for a second.

It wasn’t so funny when, in a fit of anxiety, she jumped at the door and accidentally (?) locked it while my wife was taking Joey out for a quick bathroom break. She was locked out without her keys or cell phone at about 10:00 P.M., and Nina couldn’t be trusted alone for a second. Luckily we had a nice neighbor and I had a job that I could leave when I needed to. But Nina had signed her name in the carpet and helped herself to anything that looked edible. I still wonder if the whole thing was set up by Nina to teach us a lesson.

At one point my wife and I went on a weeklong trip to Mexico and left the dogs with our parents. My parents got Joey and her parents got Nina. My father-in law made a sandwich for himself during this time. He took a bite, then leaned over to pick something up and Nina saw her chance. She was able to snatch the sandwich in one swift move, and devour it in two quick chomps. My wife returned from Mexico with a beautiful pair of handcrafted leather sandals. Nina turned them into a rawhide snack within a week. She earned the reputation of a cute but naughty dog.

Worst of all her bad habits was her habit of eating out of the trash can. She did this all the time, no matter what was in there, and continues the habit to this day. My older dog learned his lesson early on through some very loud and animated antics by me. He always stays a dogleg away. But Nina thinks it is her personal pantry. We will throw something in there and forget about it, or remove the trashbag from the can and leave it in the garage for a couple of hours out of laziness, and she will find her way into it.

Animal Impressions

But Nina isn’t all bad. She is cute and affectionate, and will obey some commands on her good days. Better yet, Nina can do a lot of impressions. Almost every time we flip past a program featuring an animal, my wife and I say, “That looks like Nina!” in unison. The monkeys look like our son, but almost everything else looks like Nina. She has a long snout and snaps it shut on food with a powerful vengeance like an alligator. Her skull is small and has pointy ears on top of it making her look somewhat like a deer. She pounces like a cat when she is playing with Joey and is colored like a lion cub. She can be skittish and hold her tail like a hyena. When she slept lightly as a puppy, she would make a bird sound somehow. After roughhousing or a long walk, she would sleep deeply and grunt like a pig. Her ears are large and stand straight up like a rabbit’s. Her head, ears, and snout resemble a kangaroo and she has long hind legs, but she has resisted every attempt I have made to teach her to hop on them. Her tail is long and full like a fox’s, and she can be as sneaky and crafty as one. Nina has provided us with hours of entertainment speculating on her mother’s species, since we had already decided who her father was.

Nina gets away

Nina doesn’t do well with crowds, nor with buffet’s. So when we had people over for New Year’s Eve, we left her and Joey outside. It was a nice evening and she enjoyed her fenced in backyard, so we didn’t give it a second thought.

Nina had hopped the fence twice when we first moved in, but she didn’t go far and hadn’t attempted it in several years. Twice, we accidentally left the gate open and both dogs got out but while Joey went several streets down, Nina stayed within site. We never thought we would lose a dog, and certainly not Nina. That only happened to bad, careless dog owners.

It must have been the fireworks. We heard them a few times, but didn’t think anything of it. Fireworks and explosions are such a rare occurrence that I forget she is scared to death of them, and will run like mad around the house during the week leading up to July Fourth. I just didn’t think…

At about 1 o’clock or so, I walked some friends to their car and decided to let the dogs in. I called my usual call, “Come on dogs!” Only Joey came. I thought perhaps Nina was sniffing something or just ignoring me, so I called her by name, “Come on Nina!” No Nina. I let Joey in and then looked in Nina’s crate. Empty. Hmm. I called downstairs to the party, but my wife said Nina wasn’t down there. Uh-oh. I looked upstairs. No Nina. I checked the gate, but it was closed. I grabbed a flashlight and checked the whole yard: under bushes, under the deck, behind the shed, in the shed…and I hit full on panic.

My 3 year-old daughter had recently begun to put together sentences, and had asked me if Nina was her dog. I told her yes at the time, and she proudly exclaimed 1000 times a day now that Nina was her dog. I had lost my daughter’s dog!

My wife and I had a quick discussion of what could have happened and how it could have happened and where she could have gone. I then set out on foot through the neighborhood, while she rode with her cousin.

I did a lap around the block, then returned expecting Nina had come home on her own or my wife had found her. No such luck. I put Joey on a leash and set out again, hoping that if she wouldn’t come for me she would come for him, and if I couldn’t sense her at a distance he could.

I called Nina’s name, tried to keep attuned to Joey, and prayed. I was tired, and it was too late to be out at all, especially calling out a dog’s name. Joey thought he was getting a rare treat of a long walk at night, and lifted his nose to enjoy the breeze.

My thinking was this: I remembered the fireworks coming from the southeast, so I went northwest. At first I doubted she would cross Johnson Drive to our north or Shawnee Mission Parkway to our south, both busy roads even at 1 A.M. But after an hour of searching the immediate streets around us, I decided it was possible she crossed Johnson Drive.

At one point I thought I saw a shadow that looked like Nina, and I would swear it moved like Nina when it ran from my voice. I got excited, but I didn’t want to get caught in someone’s yard in the middle of the night so I was timid about going in after her. I called and looked, but didn’t see the shadow anymore. I came back to the house a few minutes later and ventured a few steps into the open yard, but couldn’t see anything. I ventured on.

I am sure I walked a hundred miles that night. Even Joey got tired of walking after a while. I kept in touch with my wife by cell phone. Eventually, she had to give up and get home to the kids so that the person who was watching them could go. I have no idea what time it was, but eventually my brain and legs wore out. I figured I would be more effective searching for her after a nap and a snack, and perhaps she would come home before I woke up. Problems often have a way of working themselves out while you sleep.

When I awoke, I looked around for Nina again, but didn’t see her. I started pounding the pavement, but worried that my strategy was wrong. So I got in my van and started driving slowly with the windows down and the radio off. If it had been a school day I probably would have been suspected of horrible intentions, but the streets were deserted. I guess everyone was sleeping off the night’s revelries.

The few people I did encounter were all cautious as I pulled up to them, but when I told them that I was looking for a lost dog, they were all helpful. They would scan the neighborhood from where they were standing, ask me what she looked like, and say they’d keep an eye out for her. Each time I’d thank them and pull away, then realize that they had no way of contacting me if they did find her, except to stand on the street holding Nina until I came back by, if I ever did. But I was too tired, sad, and scatter-brained to solve the problem, so each encounter went the same.

I had no idea how big this little cowtown was until I tried to figure out how to find a dog in it. I tried to do one of those word problems I hated some much in school: If Nina can run 20 miles and hour, how far could she get after six hours? Then I tried to be a dog psychologist: Where would she stop and hide? Would she go to yards with dogs in them, or cross the street and seek out quiets yards. Would she go in a straight line, zig-zag, or go in circles? Was she looking for our house or following her stomach?

My in-laws did some searching of their own, and thought they saw her in a front door a few block away. I have never seen another dog that looked like Nina, not even a picture of one. She was one of a kind. So if my father-in-law thought he saw her, it had to be her.

He got into my van, and we tried to find the house. After several wrong turns, we found the house. The door faced at a right angle to the street, and it was hard to see in the door, but there was a Nina-sized dog in the glass door with big pointy ears. Immediately, my mushy brain was able to conjure up the idea that some good Samaritans had found Nina and taken her in, and she was looking out the door waiting me for me to rescue her.

As we approached the house, a relieved smile grew from one ear to the other, and I felt 100 pounds lighter. I was going to hug her, kiss her right on her doggy lips, and offer her rescuers my firstborn out of gratitude. But once we were at an angle where we could see into the door clearly, I saw it wasn’t Nina. My heart hit the soles of my shoes, and Atlas shrugged the weight of the world onto my shoulders. I thought I had seen every dog in our neighborhood, and had never in my life seen any dog like Nina. But here was a dog with similar shape, but a different snout and coloring. Disappointment barely describes the feeling I had.

We had paid dearly for KU basketball tickets, and the game was January 1^st. We had looked forward to it for several weeks. Now we questioned whether we should go. But people were expecting us to go, and looking for her hadn’t been fruitful, so we went. I think it was an exciting game, but I missed it thinking about Nina the whole time. I missed Nina.

I had no idea how much I loved that dog till she was gone. We made jokes about her, and teased people that we were going to give her to them. We teased her that were would donate her to our favorite Chinese restaurant. We often focused on her bad habits. Now, I was full of regret and guilt. I didn’t hug her enough. I didn’t appreciate her enough.

Since it was a holiday weekend, we couldn’t look in the shelters until January third. When I drove down roads, I looked for her carcass on the shoulder. The meteorologists talked about a coming storm, and I thought for sure we’d never see her again. And yet, a part of me held out hope.

I have a job with flexible hours that has me driving a lot between clients. I took advantage of that by checking all the local shelters daily. My wife dug up a few pictures of Nina and made a flyer out of them. I made color copies of the flyer and hung them around the neighbor, gave one to all the shelters, and put them up in grocery and pet stores around us. My wife called on all the local vets to see if anyone had brought them a stray, and left them a flyer.

I spent several hours browsing the web and found some great sites. I placed a notice on each site. I posted and ad in the Kansas City Star, and paid extra for better placement. And every day I searched the found dog section. I also searched a local newspaper’s lost and found section, and it had an option that allowed me the receive an email when any found dog adds were posted.

I called on every ad that carried the remote possibility of being Nina. One add was on a dog found 40 miles from us, but I called anyway. Most of the phone calls went like this: I would ask what the dog they found look like. Then I would describe Nina. I said she was medium size, light brown, white belly, big ears, and a long nose. A couple of the dogs that people had found sounded like Nina, but then the person would ask about the collar.

I had given the dogs a bath that day, and hadn’t put their collars back on. Nina was collarless, and didn’t have the tattoo or microchip that makes identifying dogs so easy. Every dog that sounded like her had an identifiable collar. I was starting to feel like a bad pet owner.

The only thing that eased that feeling was my daily trips to the shelters. I would see the same dogs in each one every day, and wasn’t running into anyone else looking for their dog. That made me feel a little angry. Here I was spending a lot of time and money doing everything I could to find Nina, and had nothing to show for it. Meanwhile, here were lost dogs safe and sound at the shelter, and all the owners had to do was drive up and get them. What were their owners doing? Did anyone miss these dogs?

Several of these shelters had a dog that looked like Nina in some way. At Animal Haven in Merriam, you can see some dogs in their kennels as you come up the driveway. Everyday, I saw this one dog with a small head and large ears and my heart would race. But when I got closer, I’d see it wasn’t her. I was fooled everytime because I was so desperate to find her. I had similar experiences at other shelters. I still can’t believe there are that many dogs similar to Nina, and I had never seen one before she got away.

Then the promised storm finally arrived. Our power was out for several days, and we had to go to a hotel. I quit searching for her during this time. After the power was restored, I began to search for her again, but my hope was waning. If she wasn’t in a shelter, then she was probably out in the elements during the ice storm. I didn’t think there was any way she could have survived during the ice storm. We live close to several busy roads, so there was a good chance she tried to cross and was hit, but we never saw the body. At the end of one day, I finally confided to my wife that I had given up hope of ever seeing that dog again. I had been dreaming of the reunion scene, with tears flowing and tails wagging and hugs and shouts of joy. Now I faced the fact that I wouldn’t even get closure.

Homecoming

That very day that I lost faith, I got a strange phone call. Several days before, I had answered an ad from the email alert in the local paper. Someone reported finding a small orange dog at an intersection 20 blocks away. I left her a voicemail, and she called me back. We talked for several minutes. She described the dog she had found and I described Nina. We agreed that we must have not been talking about the same dog. But now she was calling me back, saying that no one else had called her about this dog. She again described the dog she had, and I described Nina. At one point I told her that Nina looks more like a deer or kangaroo than a dog. She said she had said the same thing about the dog she found to her daughter. We agreed to meet in a well-lit parking lot nearby in 15 minutes.

I tried to keep the conversation on the down-low, but my wife is too perceptive for that. And she started to get her hopes up. My in-laws happened to be over at my house when the call came in, and my father-in-law said he would go with me. His hopes were high too. I expected disappointment, and so I tried to get everyone to be rational. Even so, I made a mad dash to find my wallet and keys.

During the drive to the meeting place, I had one thought in my head: don't get your hopes up. But my father-in-law was practically bursting with excitement. He just knew it was her, and we would soon be driving home with Nina. It was affecting me, and I had to fight with all my might to remain stoic and dubious.

We pulled into the parking lot and I saw the car that the person said they would be driving, but I didn’t see the dog. We pulled up to the drivers side, and saw a dog head on the passenger side. “That’s her, Larry!” my father-inlaw said, but I remained silent and stoic. I got out of my van and came to the other side expecting another disappointment. There sat a dog that looked exactly like Nina with her ears up and tail wagging. I stepped closer and didn’t want to believe it was her. But inside me I knew it: Nina was found!

I pulled her head up to my face and nuzzled her and said some sweet nothings and squeezed her and let her lick me. Then my father-in-law got his chance and I called Rachel to tell her we had found her. I had a quick talk with the lady who had her. Her name was Kathy, and I am sure she is the nicest lady I have ever met. We thanked her profusouly and then got ready for to take Nina home.

My father-in-law seemed as happy as the day I made him a grandfather. He insisted that Nina ride home on his lap, and I think the big tough guy was crying. He’ll probably blame the tears on his contacts, but I know better.

When we came in the door, there were shreaks and shouts and tails wagging and all I had pictured in my mind. But no one was happier than Joey. Nina has spent most of her life annoying him and stealing his food, but he wouldn’t leave her alone from the second she came through the door. He was all over her, sniffing and licking and following her everywhere. I guess even he didn’t realize how much he loved her till she was gone. After the excitement died down (at least an hour later), we looked under the kitchen table to see the two of them half asleep with their heads together. It was cute enough for several pictures.

In the excitement, we realized we had not found a way to thank Kathy properly (mere words wouldn’t do), nor had we found out the whole story on how she had found Nina. So we called her back, talked to her for a while, and got her address. Later we sent her a thank-you card with a gift-certificate and a picture of our two dogs with their heads together.

Here is what we know of Nina’s story: We found her gone early on January 1^st. Someone retrieved her on January 6^th and gave her to Kathy, who has been known to take in strays from time to time. On January 4^th, an Ice storm hit Kansas City, coating everything with a thick layer of ice and snow. Nina was out in the elements, without food and water during that storm.

But here is where the story gets really interesting. I have a client on Metcalf, and I had work to do at their site on January 4^th and 5^th, during the ice storm. While driving down Metcalf to get there, I wondered if Nina had come that way, and I asked a few people at the site if they had seen a stray dog around. On January 6^th, the manager of this client looked out her window and saw a dog try to cross Metcalf during the day. She was sure the dog would be hit, and she was equally sure she didn’t want that view out her window, so she and several employees went out to catch this dog.

She wasn’t dressed for the weather, and the dog kept running away from them, so she left her employees and went back to work. One of the employees got a hold of her somehow (I never got a chance to talk to him about it), and later gave Nina to Kathy.

Kathy said that Nina was coated in ice and dirt when they found her, and that she cowered in a corner for several days, not wanting any human contact and refusing food. After several days she came out, ate, and warmed up to Kathy. She was bathed, brushed, fed, and got to sleep on Kathy’s bed with her! She probably began to think it was a vacation!

Now, when Nina gets in the trash, I find it harder to get mad at her because I am sure that is how she survived out there alone. I have a newfound respect for her, because I know I would have been a Popsicle in that ice storm. And now I always have time to give Nina the affection she deserves, no matter what is going on in my life. Because life is short, but not too short to show your friends that you love them.