This past weekend marked one year of adopting Barney, just a little guy. His entry into my life was kicked off by some of the worst 48 hours I’ve had the displeasure of experiencing.
It started when we drove to get him a state over meeting the foster family. Out comes just the most timid and shy little guy. Instantly was in love with him. So thrilled to adopt.
We drive back and arrive in the dark. He is clearly nervous, but we are making pains to make sure he gets comfortable with the surroundings. As we taking him out to go pee he stops, backs up and his collars slips off. This is supposed to be a no-slip collar by the way. We both notice each other and before I know it he has bolted away. I am in flip-flips and just running, and he is outpacing me and I see him slip from my sight and away across busy roads.
I don’t have my phone and I am hyperventilating. Now is a good time to mention he is a rescue. He came from a breeder and is entirely unsocialized. The interview process was intense, and rightly so. One of the things said to me by one of the people who run the rescue was “He is afraid of people, if he escapes he is gone for good. He isn’t coming back.” So, that phrase is ping-ponging in my head (and will continue to) as I have just failed this dog. And only after 45 minutes of ownership.
The next two days I get a collective 2 hours of sleep as I am on the phone constantly and searching for any sign. The rescue was so great in connecting me to people and resources as I am essentially learning how to trap having no prior knowledge of this.
I am making signs and putting them up everywhere and tracking sightings on a map and following any lead I hear.
There is such an ebb and flow of information, but every sighting I get a call about is a sign of hope. He’s still alive. He’s still here. I eventually get a call from someone who keeps seeing him under her tree. I am so lucky this person turned out to be nice, willing to help, and a dog lover. I got access to a live trap and got the stinkiest meats that I could find and a motion sensitive trail cam. Now let’s hope he trips it. Wait.
I get an alert on my phone that night. I see just the fluff of something. I went to check the trap fully expecting to have caught a raccoon or a possum. But there he was. Just sitting in the cage. I couldn’t believe it. I started crying and just so happy it was now over and we got him back.
I scooped him out of the cage and he just sat there. Totally unaware of what havoc he brought. He slept hard the next day. And so did I.
The search and find would not have been even remotely possible without everyone who reached out to help. All the leads. All the calls. All the posts and shares. The people willing to help take their wealth of knowledge and lend me some of it. The whole town who seemingly got behind finding this dog. I hears about people looking for him for weeks in the most random situations. I’m truly grateful and thankful to this day.
It’s been one year since those 48 hours and he has grown from such a reserved shy dog, to one with personality who has come out of his shell. There is more work to socialize, but he is such a different dog from when we got him. It has been such a great thing to see it happen and I can’t wait to see how much more he changes. I get excited every day I see him and I think he feels the same.