The night of the missing dogs
It all started when we received our second water bill for this house, one that had more than quadrupled in amount than the bill before it. Meaning we were spending more on water than a monthly payment on an Italian sports car. Maybe this was Jon's mid-life crisis? And instead of losing it and running out and buying a convertible Porsche he freaked out one day, stood in the back yard, and sprayed the trees with water for twenty hours straight. Would that not be the cutest mid-life crisis ever?
Now, I'm taking way more baths than I ever have in my life, but it's not like I'm filling a swimming pool every time I do it. So I know my cleanliness is not to blame for this ridiculous jump in the amount of our water bill. The only explanation is that we've got leaks or some other major issue going on with our sprinkler system. ISN'T THAT FUN. SO FUN. Welcome, sprinkler system, to our collection of home owner nightmares! Sprinkler system, meet our troubled boiler! Here's our twenty-five-year-old roof that is falling off in chunks! Sorry, you missed the dehydrated cat that was living in our attic, but here are all our broken gutters! Oh, and a retaining wall that threatens to crush the garage!
Who in their right mind would buy a house like this, right? Let's just put it this way: have you seen my bathtub? Fifteen minutes in that thing is like four shots of bourbon, and suddenly everything is fine and next thing you know you're drunk dialing friends and slurring YOU ARE SO NICE, I LIKE YOU.
So we called out The Sprinkler People, and sure enough, several spots were just shooting gallons of water into the air every time they were turned on. Did I actually just write that sentence? Oh my god, I did. I'm not going to edit it because the thirteen-year-old boy in me is begging me to elaborate.
A few hours later and things were mostly fixed, and all that was going on while we were upstairs shooting video footage for the office remodel. In fact, they finished their work just as we were playing back the video and realized that Jon had plugged the microphone mixer into the wrong hole.
(Thirteen-year-old boy snicker)
(Sixty-eight-year-old father eye roll)
Meaning the microphone I had been wearing hadn't been working the entire time. Meaning he wanted to reshoot the entire thing. Meaning my face turned an angry shade of red, and I said through gritted teeth, "You know that appointment you're supposed to make with our marriage counselor? HERE'S THE PHONE."
Right then my niece came bounding up the stairs. It was her last day with us since she starts school next week, and I thought she was coming to say goodbye. So I stood up to hug her, and she was all, dude. Gross.
And then she mumbled something, I couldn't make it out, followed by, "We can't find Coco."
What?
"Yeah, someone left the gate open, and we can't find her anywhere."
Since I have lived through The Missing Dog Scenario more than is fair to a single human being, the script started running through my head involuntarily: I AM GOING TO FIND HER DEAD BODY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD. I WILL NEVER GET OVER THIS. I WILL NEVER GET OVER THIS. I WILL NEVER GET OVER THIS.
It all happened so fast, but I remember ripping the microphone off of my chest, running down two flights of stairs and out the front door in my bare feet while screaming COCO! COCO! COCO! And while still in my bare feet I ran a block down the street to the major avenue that circles by our neighborhood, a giant lump in my throat growing in anticipation of what I might find. Where is her limp dead body? Where is her limp dead body?
I know this is morbid, but that's exactly where my brain goes every time we can't find one of the dogs. Maybe because that's how my brother's dog died, maybe because I know so many people who have lost their dogs to cars. And suddenly my head is spinning with scenarios in my brain like, how am I going to wake up tomorrow morning knowing she's dead? How will I bring myself to put her body in the car and drive her to the vet? How am I going to tell everyone on the Internet who has grown to love her like I do? Despite her poop-eating, barking at leaves, non-stop licking everything ways?
Luckily I didn't find anything on that road, so I ran back up to the house, shoved on a pair of flip-flops and grabbed a bottle of ibuprofen. We've trained the dogs to come running to the sound of pills rattling around in a bottle, and I thought I'd drive around shaking the bottle out the window while calling her name. Jon would stay at the house in case she suddenly showed up. That was the longest car ride of my life, next to being in labor on the way to the hospital. And I know I must have looked completely insane, my head reaching as far out the window as I could stretch it, a bottle of pain meds in my hand, screaming COCO! COCO! COCO!
I imagined a horrified mother playing with her daughter in her driveway saying, "No, sweetie. That's not some new ice cream truck. Hurry inside and hide."
I circled and circled the neighborhood: nothing. Again: nothing. Again: nothing. That's when I started bawling. This is a new neighborhood. She wouldn't know her way home. What if she tried to run to the old house? I decided I'd drive over to our old neighborhood, but I wanted to touch base with Jon first. As I turned up our street, Jon was standing in the front of our house waving madly at me. That's when the lump in my throat sunk and hit my heart. I wanted to stop the car right there and never move another inch.
I know this seems ridiculous to people who don't have pets. It's just a dog, right? And even though I have kids and know the difference between the love for kids and the love for pets, that difference in no way diminishes the love for pets. We have raised this dog, fed her, treated her when ill, improved her behavior, taken her outside in the middle of the night because that's what was required. Yes, she is a total shit, but I love her shittiness. She wouldn't be Coco if she wasn't a shit.
Turns out she came running home from up the street, prompted by nothing, perhaps unable to find poop to eat in someone else's yard and remembering all the poop in ours.
And this is where the line between having pets and having kids starts to blur, because when they come home you have to act very happy about it even though your impulse is to call them names and yell hurtful obscenities. DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU PUT ME THROUGH, YOU SHIT.
I parked that car so fast, ran inside the house, and actually sat on the floor so that she could lick my face with the same mouth she uses to eat all that poop, that is how much I love that dog.
However, that's another ten years off of my life.
And then later that night Chuck wouldn't come when called from the back yard. Usual behavior, except this went on and on, and then on and on, and finally Coco had to drag us up to the hole in the fence where he had escaped into the neighbor's yard. ISN'T THAT FUN. SO FUN. Welcome, broken fence! Meet the sprinkler system! We've got a boiler who is dying to meet you!
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FM Living
apostate said:
Glad you found your dog. Yeah, I don't really get it. I'm not a dog person. It would be over for me after the buckets of diarrhea. Our family had a dog for 72 hours a couple years ago. She was adorable. But every time I went to bed I would have a panic attack over owning a dog. It was like having a newborn again. Finally I took a substancial financial loss and found her a nice home and chalked it up to learning experience. My kids think she went to live back with her mother on a farm.
But I'm happy for you.
I wish that many of my neighbors would feel the same sense of trepidation about letting their dogs roam free. I have a hard time believing there are that many "mishaps".
I read recently that you shouldn't remodel a bathroom and add a big tub unless that's what you really want because more and more people are converting their tubs into walk-in showers. So you shouldn't do it to add to your home value. I think that's INSANE. I love my soaker tub.
I regularly berate people like the Duggars for ruining our earth (Who will survive! Who will survive! Not one of us will be aliiiiiiiiive! jazz hands)
But I soak in my tub every night. Last night my son came in and had a bowel movement while I was soaking and reading one of 38 BSC books I bought on ebay (thanks for that) so that kind of ruined my bath. I was all "Just ***** forget it!" as I stormed out of our single bathroom dripping water everywhere. But most of the time I love my end-o-day soak and I'm very clean.
08.19.10 - 12:37 PM / 1katliz said:
I live in the city and EVERY SINGLE TIME I hear tires screeching in front of our house, I fear that our dog has been hit on the street. Even though our fence is secure, and the gates are too complicated for him to open, it is this scenario that goes through my head.
So very happy that all was well. You're right; the Internet would have been devastated right along with you had the outcome been different.
08.19.10 - 11:04 AM / 2naysway said:
My husband loosely tied our dog to our garage door one morning. Of course, when the dog broke free and wandered off, I tear up and down the streets like a mad woman. Luckily, the dog was in the back yard the entire time, and I never got the opportunity to call that dog a little shit because I was too busy calling my husband one.
Totally. Understand.
08.19.10 - 11:26 AM / 3mommica said:
If you ever can't find your dogs, you can have mine. Because I love you THAT much, not because they drive me batshit.
08.19.10 - 11:28 AM / 4lesliepaige78 said:
holy poop eater, batman.
you have alot going on.
may i ask, did you know all these things were wrong but thought "hey its the perfect house with a great price? we can do these repairs one at a time no problem."
moving is so stressful. hope you git er all done before winter so you can just play on the inside till spring again.
08.19.10 - 11:29 AM / 5BlogalaCart said:
omg. you just described how i behave whenever one of our mongrels (two highly obnoxious but highly adorable and loved mutty retrievers) find a ninja escape route from our house. since having a baby, the frequency has gone up. (damn you sleep deprived parent brain!) there's always lots of ugly crying involved. and driving around the neighborhood, head out the window, screaming the dogs' names and waving a tennis ball for musk to draw them home. and, EVERY TIME, I envision coming upon their dead, smooshed, bodies and I have officially lost decades off my life from the awfulness of these scares.
man, being a parent is not for the faint of heart. it's for the insane who enjoy bodily fluids, grey hair, and heart attacks.
here's documentation of one such escape. http://blogalacart.com/2009/08/relief/
08.19.10 - 11:30 AM / 6Crocker said:
Our dogs used to be awesome escape artists. One of the first things my husband did to solidify the fact that I knew I was going to marry him was replace my fence in my old house, then chicken-wire around the entire bottom half of it. When we moved into our new house after we were married, our dream home, we strategically places pots in the holes. Then chicken wired, and replaced the pots for good measure. Every time they escaped I ran screaming, watching their little asses make it around the corner. They're small but evasive. And no, it doesn't matter that you know they just ate their weight in shit (theirs and others) once you find them -- yay doggie kisses.
our vet told us to give the dogs a few chunks of canned pineapple each night and it'll cure them of the poop eating. It worked for a week, at which point I ran out of pineapple and said screw it. But it did work... now we have “poop-hill” on our property…. They love it up there. Ah well, glad you found Coco. Try the pineapple?
08.19.10 - 11:31 AM / 7Kristi said:
Totally, totally understand! The Internet would indeed have bawled big, wet tears if something happened to the little shit!
<3 you Dooce!
08.19.10 - 11:34 AM / 8LizandBoys said:
Our first dog was nicknamed Houdini by my dad (that and "attention slut", but that doesn't fit into this story). She would squeeze through the tiniest of gaps in our fence (we had to tent peg every section of our fence) and run, run, run...if we found her we had to CATCH her - because all of a sudden, "come" became a game.
Our 2nd dog was an Aussie and she would always appear on our front doorstep after the chase (of the rabbit, squirrel, small child, mailman...etc..) was over and greet us there with a big dumb-dog smile and a gazillion licks (is that the breed? the drive-by lickings?). I'd almost be in tears, convinced she was dead on the road and she'd be on the front doorstep.
Our current dog is scared of her own shadow and won't leave the yard if the gate is left wide open - she's her own kinda crazy.
08.19.10 - 11:40 AM / 10Gammarific said:
Oh, I know exactly where you are coming from. I have been through this so many times with our two dogs. The last few times they have escaped they have managed to kill a turkey, two ducks and two chickens. They have been picked up by the pound so many times that we have basically used up all of our chances. If they are picked up again we won't be able to let them outside without being kenneled. It makes me feel like such an irresponsible pet owner, but there is always some circumstance (maintenance guy, wind storm, housesitter, etc.) that leads to them getting out. I can barely sleep at night worrying that they will get out and kill something else and/or get picked up by animal control. I love them and hate them at the same time. Dogs!!!
08.19.10 - 11:41 AM / 11medwards said:
I totally get the panick. We had just moved into our old house and the cable people came to work in the yard and left the gate open. We had a toy poodle that was 12 years old (that I had long before I married my husband) and a mutt that was less than a year. They both got out and we never found my little dog.
I cried for about a week. I'm glad she's home safe and sound and that you found the hole Chuck's discovered so you can keep him home too.
Don't you just love home ownership :)
08.19.10 - 11:46 AM / 12TexasKatie said:
You so perfectly describe that feeling of horror I get everytime my dog makes a mad dash out the gate of my yard to FREEDOM!!!!! The sheer terror I feel when I see that open gate and no dog in sight is something indescribable. I then end up running the streets, screaming DUCHESSSS! whilst shaking a box of dog biscuits. Sometimes I am in a blue bathrobe and fuzzy slippers while I do this. My neighbors must think I am mad.
But then when my dog comes bounding around the corner, tongue lolling out of her mouth with a look of "HAHAHAHAHA I TRICKED YOU, SUCKA!" I want to hug her and smack the crap out of her at the same time, but of course I end up hugging her for like twenty minutes until she wriggles away and goes off in the yard to chase squirrels.
I love my dog.
08.19.10 - 11:53 AM / 13Erika from Canada said:
I was thinking. If you get an evening off sometime soon, you'd love The Money Pit. (Tom Hanks). Maybe you've seen it.
Hilarity at its finest. Tom Hanks manages to laugh like you're thinking you'd like to right about now. And then Israeli Intelligence comes to the door.
08.19.10 - 11:54 AM / 14kristanhoffman said:
"And I know I must have looked completely insane, my head reaching as far out the window as I could stretch it, a bottle of pain meds in my hand, screaming COCO! COCO! COCO!"
Despite the tears in my eyes and the knot in my stomach, that image cracked. me. UP!
Oh Heather, I'm so glad that little shit was okay.
08.19.10 - 11:55 AM / 15JEMajerczyk said:
I'm so happy both Coco and Chuck are safe and sound at home. We lost our sweet puppy Abbey to a car two and a half years ago. We were on a walk when another dog barked and spooked her, her collar broke open, and she ran like hell to make it back to our house. I couldn't run fast enough to catch her. I think about her all the time.
08.19.10 - 11:55 AM / 16Anu said:
I'm glad they both are safe and well but good god, that was one hilarious post. LMAO!!
08.19.10 - 12:00 PM / 17The Cat Herder said:
I totally get the panic and the horror.
My husband once had a near-fatal asthma attack that resulted in a trip to the hospital in an ambulance. After hours in the ER, he was admitted to the hospital, and I went home to grab a few things.
Upon arriving home, I discovered the paramedics had left our front door wide open and OUR CATS WERE GONE.
I drove back to the hospital and sat beside my husband as he weakly recuperated in his hospital bed. I said, "I have some bad news... the cats are gone." He jumped out of the bed, ran over to the nurses' station, checked himself out of the hospital against their advice, and drove home wearing only his hospital gown so that the search for the cats could commence IMMEDIATELY.
Searching for lost pets after a near-death experience? Only a pet owner would understand. (We found 'em about 12 hours later, hiding in the storm drains out by the sidewalk.)
08.19.10 - 12:01 PM / 18ninesandquines said:
i'm going to puke....omg the feeling in my stomach after reading your description of how it feels....i know it all too well. thank GOD our "scares" have all turned out ok but the worst was when we lost "toad" in the green mountain national forest up in vermont....he took off and was GA-HAWN (that's like bat out of hell, see ya later, i'm out of here, running faster than a speeding bullet)....we finally found him about an hour later 2 miles down the mountain....he was soaking wet from the rivers and so proud of himself that he "found" us driving down the road calling his name....going to go puke now...bye
08.19.10 - 12:07 PM / 19kgseymour said:
Even knowing ahead of time how this turned out, I felt sick reading this because those are all the same places my head goes when a dog runs off. And I don't even bat an eye at the "lick me with the mouth you eat the poop with" because, I don't know, getting all grossed out about it just started taking a lot of energy. Energy I've already used up worrying about them being dead or hurt.
08.19.10 - 12:08 PM / 20kirstanator said:
So I thought I was the only one who immediately jumped to the morbid scenario when things go wrong. I do it when the dogs go missing but also when my girls don't answer when I call upstairs to check on them (some mass murderer has slain them or they're not breathing), when I can't see them at the park (someone has taken them), when I can't reach my husband on the cell phone (he's upside down in a ditch somewhere). It's terrible. Fortunately I don't let myself panic over these thoughts and can talk myself down pretty quickly but I hate that my mind goes there first. Hope you're not as bad as me. :) Glad the dogs are safe. Sorry about the homeowner woes. It's totally normal though!
08.19.10 - 12:10 PM / 21Meegs said:
Just re-read what you wrote about your brother's dog... and now I'm teary-eyed sitting here thinking about anything happening to my beautiful pooch, Daisy. She's also a black lab, so the picture that post created was a little too vivid. I don't know what I would do.
Glad that the pups are okay though!
08.19.10 - 12:10 PM / 22KatR said:
My dog died on Sunday. Even though she had been sick for awhile, it's still just as horrible as you think it would be. My advice to all dog owners is this: you know when you are really busy and your dog wants attention and you would usually tell them to go away? Stop and pet them.
08.19.10 - 12:12 PM / 23andreaberg said:
I have experienced that one to many times. Usually because one of my kids opened the door and basically let him out. And I am always without shoes on and I always go running up and down the street screaming his name. He never comes when I call his name in the house, why do I continually think he will coame when I call his name outside. Somehow we always find him. But man..I just about die each and every time.
08.19.10 - 12:18 PM / 24Schnauzie_Mom said:
Even the thought of losing my dogs makes me want to throw up. They are my babies. That heart pounding, stomach curling moment when you realize they've gotten loose is one of the worst feelings in the world.So glad she is home safe and sound!
08.19.10 - 12:22 PM / 25Mrs. Q. said:
This brought me back to how my friend's dogs always got out and would run-run-run. One day we were chasing one of her dogs (in a long line of dogs, because, well, you'll understand in a second) and it ran out into a main road and SPLAT was hit by a car. Right in front of us. There's not enough therapy to remove that memory from a ten year-old's brain.
I'm so happy there was a much happier outcome for Coco, but I'm thinking now may be the time to invest in an invisible fence and/or some training to help the dogs stay in your yard. For your sanity. Since phantom cats and water leaks are doing a number on you already. (Although the image of you screaming and shaking motrin is pretty funny.)
08.19.10 - 12:30 PM / 26Mrs. Q. said:
This brought me back to how my friend's dogs always got out and would run-run-run. One day we were chasing one of her dogs (in a long line of dogs, because, well, you'll understand in a second) and it ran out into a main road and SPLAT was hit by a car. Right in front of us. There's not enough therapy to remove that memory from a ten year-old's brain.
I'm so happy there was a much happier outcome for Coco, but I'm thinking now may be the time to invest in an invisible fence and/or some training to help the dogs stay in your yard. For your sanity. Since phantom cats and water leaks are doing a number on you already. (Although the image of you screaming and shaking motrin is pretty funny.)
08.19.10 - 12:31 PM / 27TXinUK said:
When I was six, my family took in a stray dog. We named her Cedar. I don't remember how long we had her but I do remember coming home from school and not being able to find her one day. When I asked my older brother if he had seen her he said she got hit by the garbage truck. I thought he was just teasing me (again!) until my mom came home later that night and explained that the neighbor had left a note. The garbage men had just scooped up her body and threw in the back of the truck. It seems slightly surreal now but it was over 25 years ago(ugh!) and it was East Texas too.
I have a pug dog now. He is never more than 10 ft away from me so I've never had to worry about him running away.
Glad that Chuck and Coco are ok!
08.19.10 - 12:52 PM / 28craftyashley said:
Sprinkler systems suck. We moved into a new house while the rest of the complex was being built. We put in a sprinkler system- digging in the rock hard dirt ourselves- (note to self: hire OTHERS to do landscaping of any sort) and almost every other weekend, a sprinkler head would burst. It was probably days or weeks before we noticed. Usually a large wet patch on the wall was a giveaway. We ended up replacing EVERY SINGLE HEAD over a period of years. If this wasn't the desert, I would get rid of the system altogether. If we didn't have kids and dogs who greatly enjoy grass, I would have just put down some rocks and cactus. (neither are very kid-friendly) Next house? Condo. The outdoors are highly overrated.
And... the last time our rogue dog escaped. I didn't even notice he was gone, until I got a call from a neighbor. I felt really bad. But to my defense, he's usually laying under the sofa during the day. (it's either that or peeing on children's toys)
08.19.10 - 12:55 PM / 29francabollo said:
We share the love-of-animals gene so I'm right there with you on this one. The sprinkler, boiler, roof issues? Throw enough money at them and they'll go away.
08.19.10 - 01:22 PM / 30LynnFlynn said:
I would feel terrible if something happened to Chuck or Coco. But my boyfriend... he would probably be beyond devastated. He is a 25 year old guy who is in love with your dogs. He visits your websites only to see your dogs. In fact, every Christmas I buy him the Chuck calendar. Glad your little shit made it home safe!
08.19.10 - 01:30 PM / 31