Zoe escaped from me a few days ago as I was taking the dogs out for their morning walk. She saw/heard/smelled something, or thought she did, and bolted down across the yard and into the woods, with me calling. She apparently cannot run and hear at the same time.
I check the Fouche Gap/Texas Valley Facebook group when something like this happens, and during the time they were gone, there was one sighting down in Texas Valley. Later the same person saw both dogs near her yard, so I drove down to look. No luck. Then, even later, the same person posted that she saw them running back up the mountain, tongues dragging the ground. Zoe’s leash was also dragging the ground.
Zoe seems to be Zeke’s spiritual successor. I could never take Zeke out off leash. Every time he saw an open door, and sometimes even an open window, he jumped for it. Zoe is not that bad. I can take her outside to the truck and not worry about her running off. If she disappears around the corner of the house, she comes back when I call her. But when something happens, she takes off.
The main difference in their wandering is that Zeke always stayed around the top of the mountain, and Zoe does not. She runs down into Texas Valley, sometimes miles away. I don’t know why, but it might have something to do with the fact that for years I took Zeke for walks around the top of the mountain, sometimes into the woods, up and down the side of the mountain, but Zoe has always been walked on Fouche Gap Road. I have never taken her into the woods at the top.
But who knows what’s going on in her mind, assuming she has one.
Just before the dogs showed up at the back door, our neighbor Deb called Leah to make sure I was OK. She knew that I always accompany the dogs, so when she saw them running without me, she was worried that something had happened to me. The next day when I took the dogs down Fouche Gap Road, an older man stopped to tell me he had been worried, too, when he saw the dogs without me. He said he started looking carefully along the road to make sure I wasn’t lying disabled somewhere.
I have been walking the dogs on Fouche Gap Road for several years at around the same time of day. I always wave at passing motorists, and they always wave back. So we kind of know each other. It’s kind of funny, but also reassuring. People were paying attention.
That’s the best part of being a part of a community, when you are noticeably absent from the usual furry team, neighbors do notice and wonder. We do look out for each other, especially in these challenging times. Lovely story, Mark.
Robin — It is reassuring that people will notice when things aren’t just right. We have had some of our neighbors call if they haven’t seen us in a while, just to make sure we’re OK.