But he was nowhere to be found. We checked the blankets and pillows on the floor beside the bed, but he was not there. I told R and together, we searched the entire house, searching everything for about 20 minutes. Rocky was nowhere. I ran to the front door to find it unlocked. Immediately, we thought he had been dognapped, but we kept looking for another five minutes, calling his name frantically and searching under everything. It was the most helpless I have ever felt. I was sure that one of our neighbors had grown tired of his incessant barking and taken him. At this point, R was also in a panic. He called 9-1-1. I started getting hysterical and walked back into the bedroom as I listened to R describe his "small brown chihuahua mix named Rocky" and no, "he had no collar on. He was in the house." Just then, R's fleece, which was propped on the unmade bed (seemingly too small to have covered the entire dog) started to move. I ran to it and pulled it down a little. Underneath, a sleepy little dog looked up at me--what'd I do?
I screamed to R and he told the dispatcher who also sounded very relieved that there had not been a dognapping. We were both a bit sheepish, but more relieved than anything. For a while, we just sat hugging and petting him. I cannot even share the awful images that jumped into my head. It is clear that both R and I watch entirely too much Law and Order, SVU.
I have never been so scared in my life. The frightening part is that we realized later if you take that hysteria, panic and fear and multiply it by one hundred, we still would not be able to understand what that must feel like when it is a small child. A sobering thought. It makes me happy she is safe in my belly right now. Maybe I am not as anxious to have her on the outside as I thought.
3 comments:
Oh man, I've been there. It's the worst feeling ever. Joey used to hide like that occasionally and he was so small you couldn't find him. Don't even get me started on the night before I was moving last time when Molly slipped out. I was a complete mental case and I have witnesses to prove it!
I'm so glad he was safe and sound! We had a similar situation happen with our cats when two of them were kittens. We had just brought them home a few weeks earlier, and we were living in an apartment in an older house. We came home, and the cats were nowhere to be found. We were hysterical (or at least I was!) and we searched the house for an hour. Finally we found them. Guess where? One of them had ripped a hole in the box spring of our bed, and they had climbed up inside it and were merrily playing on the box spring boards beneath the mattress!
Ah the ripping a hole in the box spring trick. That happened to me with a kitten as well. Worst thing ever! Not only did they make a home inside what was then a brand new box spring, but she liked to play in it in the middle of the night when I was sleeping. Got so annoyed one night at 3 a.m. i got up, disassembled the bed and ripped the lining clear off the box spring :-)
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