Runaway Baby Girl

Posted Monday, September 22, 2008 11:41 AM
I was having a good weekend until......
Friday Night: quiet night waiting for my Dad to call. We got Taco Bell at 10pm for dinner, which left me feeling not so good.
Saturday: DH's ball hockey game (the lost 8-0) and then we spent the afternoon getting everything that's ours into one room at MIL's for moving on Friday and Saturday. Saturday night I made my favorite meal and we watched Braveheart.
Sunday: We got up and DH and I went to Home Depot to get some more stuff for the house. We left Lola (our 3 year old Boxer Pug) at home with BIL. *Necessary tid-bit of information, Lola is terrified of strange or unfamiliar men. We don't know why, but it's a fear that has developed over the last year and a half. She also hates the road. If we try to walk anywhere on the road she gets really antsy and trys to go up every drive-way we pass* Anyways, long story short, my FIL showed up to pick up BIL and inadvertantly scared her and she took off. You have to understand that Lola doesn't take off. She doesn't need a leash and is always out in the (unfenced) yard with me or DH and is right on our heels. She's too much of a suck to run away. So I knew that she must have been really, really scared to take off like that because she's never done it before. BIL called us at Home Depot to tell us that they were "chasing her". This was BAD because I knew she'd be so scared by this point that she'd never come to the two men chasing her, it would just scare her even more. But, they had to keep going to try to stay with her so we could get her once we got back to the area. She just kept running. I immediately started to panic because she's my baby. I called my Mum (who Lola lives with through the week and has known since she was a baby- it's like her other mommy) who immediately headed out to look for her too because we were still 15 minutes away. I knew at this point she would only come to me, DH or my Mum because she's be so scared.
BIL said that everyone in the area was super helpful telling them where they had seen her etc. They finally caught up to her at a cat-walk where she was cowering behind some "bushes" but as soon as she saw them running towards her, she took off again. In the process of all of this she crossed countless side streets, she crossed a really busy main street TWICE and an extremely busy 4 lane street where it intersects with the really busy street once. She ran through a really busy parking lot with several stores and a drive through fast food place and just kept going. We kept getting calls from BIL saying "okay someone saw her over on ____ street" etc. Everytime we got a call that she had been seen on a busy street I would cry even harder because I knew a) how totally terrified she must be and probably totally panicing b) I had visions of her getting hit by a car. It was so stressful to try to "stay on her trail" but we had to do it. I knew it was only a matter of time before she ran out on another road and got hit.
DH had got out of the car to run down the really busy street because someone said they had seen her there, and I kept driving trying to catchup with BIL and FIL who were closest to her and had seen her several times. It was like a friggin' high speed chase because I was driving so fast and pulling so many U turns etc. I finally saw them, BIL was on foot chasing after her (she was quite a ways ahead of him because I still couldn't see her). She turned into a field (thank god she was atleast off the road at this point) and I went back out to a main street to try to get ahead of her. Finally I saw BIL running through the field a bit behind so I made my next left and he came up an intersecting road. He's yelling "she's right ahead of you". I finally see her and yell out the windown "LOLA". She's so scared by this point that she drops to the ground, cowering right down with her tail tucked underneath. I slowly drive up beside her, make sure theirs no cars coming, open the door and yell, in my "puppy-talk voice" "hi baby-girl, common'!" She turns, realizes it's me and runs full out and launches herself into the car onto my lap and collpases against my chest. She's panting so hard she's making herself choke and is drooling everywhere (she doesn't drool at all unless she's very ill) and she's pressing herself as close to me as she can get. She had been running, full out, for almost an hour. We went home, she had a HUGE drink of cold water and then she crawled up on the couch with me, curled up in the crook of my legs and went immediately to sleep.
I couldn't be mad at her, because I knew she didn't run away to be "bad". She ran because she was terrified and kept running because it just got worse and worse. She came right to me without hesitation amd the look of relief on her face was so sad. She was being chased by scary men, she was on the road, in a strange area with lots moving, loud cars etc. It breaks my heart to even think about how terrified she must have been. Especially when I think about the roads, the parking lots and how big eveything must of seemed to her because she's so tiny and when she stopped in the cat-walk to hide. I would hate to know what was going through her head at that point "I don't know where I am, I'm on strange roads, what do I do now and where's my mum?". It was the scariest moments of my life and I never want to feel like that again. Luckily, we move into our house on Friday and she doesn't have to live with strange men anymore. My poor baby girl... what an awful day for her.