home sweet home

For 54 long minutes today, I had absolutely no idea where Mr Burns was. 

Absolutely no idea.

It turned out just fine.  We're home now and everything's OK. But it's a funny thing what the mind does in those situations. 

The first twenty minutes or so I was OK, whistling, calling, clapping, listening for the distinctive sound of his panting breath, his careless crashing through the brush.  When you're listening hard, it's pretty remarkable how much birds can sound like the jangle of a metal tag against the buckle of the collar, how much noise squirrels can make when they run through the fallen leaves.

It's so hard to know what to do in those situations. 

Should I backtrack and look for him?  Should I stop moving? Ultimately I did all of the above, adding mileage, calling, whistling, clapping.  And still, no idea where he was.

We do a similar hike about five times a week, between Joe and me.  At the trail head this morning, Burns sat nicely and waited.  I let him off the leash.  He sat and looked at me, waiting for Release, and then off he went.  Five times a week off-leash in the woods so Burns can explore and run.  Five times a week we work on his off-leash recall skills in the woods -- that is, his trained ability to return to us when called.

Let's just say it's not his strongest skill at present.

Sometimes he comes back right away.  Other times he takes a few iterations.  And sometimes there's a bit of a wait.  He's always come back.  It's just that it's sometimes an exercise in steeling myself through the fear that comes up when I don't know where he is.  The thing about dog training is you just have to keep working on it, rewarding the good.  And he's getting better.   

Burns's predecessor, Jasper, aka Brown Guy, would trot ahead of me on trail, pause and watch for me over his shoulder, then once I was in sight, trot a little ahead,  always this little leap-frog, always close. I can't think of one time in his entire life when I didn't know where he was, when he didn't stick close to me, on-leash or off-.  He had his quirks, our old sweetheart, serious quirks.  I remind myself that even training Jas took a long time, that something clicked when he was 2 and it all came together. He wasn't perfect, but he sure wasn't such a wanderer.  

I was fine at first.  But then, dramatically, not.

For the last 34 minutes of this morning's disappearance, I was a mess of anxiety, wishing he was not only microchipped but also had an implanted tracking device like a tiger or a great white shark so I could at least find his little flashing dot on the screen of my phone and know, with some kind of certainty, that he was just on the trail of some deer the next valley over, not smashed up by a car on the busy street we live on.  Then at least I'd have some information.

Because that's the worst thing for me in this situation: in the absence of data, my mind goes totally nuts.  Is he hurt, did coyotes get him, did someone find him and they're just not calling me even though I just turned my ringer on and I'm looking at the screen every 15 seconds because he's so cute and friendly that who wouldn't want to keep him, or jesus, maybe they're going to sell him to bad people as a bait dog?  

Mostly though, I was totally sick at the thought that I'd lost him, through my own stubborn foolishness, that something bad would happen to him, that I'd have to give up at some point and go home, without him, feel responsible forever for his disappearance, for whatever ill befell him.  And still throughout, so uncertain:

What to do?  Keep hiking and looking, stay in the hills, go home, what?

Ultimately, I headed all the way down the bottom of the trail, pretty sure the entire time -- since I could see our tracks heading up but saw none of his pawprints heading down -- that he was behind me somewhere, too busy or genuinely a little off course and lost, to make his way to me.  But I couldn't go home, I couldn't cross our busy street and go home, because that would be giving up.

So I headed back up the trail, legs tired and heavy, powered by adrenaline.  Halfway to the trailhead, who should come tearing down the hill toward me but my beloved four-legged wanderer, panting hard, feet filthy, genuinely happy to see me.  He'd been looking.  

For the rest of the week, we're keeping the leash on, not as punishment, but because I just don't think I can't take any more anxiety for a while, having 100% fried my circuits this morning with that holy-shit freak-out.  We've had enough excitement for one day, and for now are enjoying being reunited, home together, home sweet home.