Karma finally came back to bite me for every time I rolled my eyes at people who said their dogs got lost because someone must have opened their gate and let them out.
Everyone knows how VERY diligent I am about my boys' safety. I regularly check my gate to make sure it's closed securely. It's wonky and REALLY hard to get open, so it's just as hard to get it shut. But nobody had been here. Nobody had been in or out of my yard in at least a week. I'd checked the gate 100 times since then and it was fine. It was fine at 4:00 yesterday afternoon, so when I let the boys out around 6:30 last night I had no reason to think otherwise. I went back to watching TV and shortly thereafter, Chicken Wing came and perched on top of the couch to watch with me. Everything seemed perfectly normal.
I got a call from a former Animal Control officer and thought nothing of it. What's up, dude? "Is Beau with you?" I checked his crate. I checked my bedroom. I checked the office. I looked outside and saw my gate open. I immediately went into a terror panic, running up the middle of the street screaming, with her still on the phone. An Animal Welfare and Management truck was heading up the street straight at me (she was in my neighborhood on another call and had recognized my dog). She pointed and I saw Beau trotting up the sidewalk. Luckily, he came to me with relative ease, and I was able to get him home safely. I started screaming for Cheeto. He was gone too.
As the AMW officer and I continued to scour every street in my neighborhood (with me sobbing uncontrollably) I got a call from a sweet young lady who lived several streets farther away than where we were looking. She and her daughters had found Cheeto, wet and scared, but otherwise relatively unscathed. They had him back to me in a matter of minutes but it felt like an eternity pacing my sidewalk. I gave them every dollar in my wallet because I felt like I couldn't thank them enough for bringing my boy home. It was only $14, so it's not like they won the lottery, but maybe she got the girls some ice cream.
The moral to this story is that no matter how careful you are, accidents still happen. Although, I'm convinced this was no accident; my gate didn't accidentally "fall" open. Someone with a grudge WANTED me to lose my dogs, and it worked. People really ARE mean just to be mean. So, take an extra second to check your yard next time you let your dogs outside. It may seem silly, but it might also save their lives.
