"The Blind leading the Blind"

On Saturday night March 31, 2002, late in the evening, a very bad storm hit our area. That is the same night that the severe tornados hit the Pasadena area. I was up and sitting on our bed paying bills, and needed to run outside to get a checkbook out of my truck. I was only out for a few seconds, but that was enough. My Molly, a 15-year-old beagle, mostly blind and almost deaf, decided to follow me out. She has done that on occasions, and I would see her come out and either make her go back in or let her go out for a few minutes. That night I never knew she was behind me, and did not know she was gone until an hour and a half later. She usually is asleep that time of night and that is why we did not notice her gone until she had a good head start. I put my shoes on, and got in my truck and rode around, but no Molly to be found. After riding the neighborhood and not finding Molly or her body, I was sick. I felt I had let her down and did not protect her. I then was convinced that she was picked up by someone in the area and they decided to keep her. After several days I was convinced she was sleeping in her new home. For days I rode around the neighborhood twice a day and put out over 100 signs. My Caring Critter group was organizing a search party for the upcoming Saturday, and I was convinced we needed to go almost door to door in the neighborhood.

Molly is a dog that does not frighten easily and is, as far as I know, not scared of anything. Well, something happened to her that caused her to bolt and leave the neighborhood and probably run from many a dog lover that I’m sure tried to catch her. Molly had been gone eighty-eight hours, traveled 3 or 4 miles, crossed several major intersections, and many many side streets before she was finally caught. She was at Kolter Elementary School near South Braeswood and South Rice, when school let out for the day, and a caring third grader managed to catch her. This is the same young man whose family dog was put to sleep on Saturday. His mom told me that he slept on the floor all Friday night with the sick dog so she would not be lonely. I am really glad this child is a dog lover, because he rescued my Caring Critter.

I always "preach" about keeping a collar on your pet "all the time", and as soon our dogs are dry from their bath, the collar goes back on. Tags are important, and they should be in two places on the collar. If the dog catches the one set of tags on something and pulls them off, hopefully the other set will be intact. Always have a personalized tag and if possible have a friend’s number on it in case you can’t be reached. If you only have a vet tag on the collar and the dog gets lost after the hours of the Clinic or on a weekend, you will have to wait until the Clinic opens the next day or opens back up from the weekend on Monday.

One mistake I made with Molly is that I had decided not to have a microchip put in her thinking she was to old to get too far. She made a believer out of me, under adverse conditions she can do some traveling. Had she had a chip in her neck on Saturday, I would have not worried about her losing her collar. This was an added worry that I did not need. She is going for her chip next week.

She came home very tired and hungry. The days and nights she was gone were mild and I am sure that helped her survive. Molly survived the "vacation" with only minor problems, like my friend said a while back "she’s a tough old bird"!