Jack ‘n Tracie

My mom asked me to watch her long-haired standard dachshund over the weekend while she and her husband took off for the beach. No problem, I say, because we’ve watched him for her before and he’s a great dog and is no trouble at all.

He isn’t the brightest dog though. We suspect he may have a hearing problem, but sometimes he seems to hear us. Maybe he’s got a some hearing loss. Maybe he’s just really good at ignoring people. Who knows? My mom took him in after she met him at the vet’s office one day. He had apparently been abused and neglected and needed a home. He’s 10+ years old now and has cancer. He’s still got a lot of life left in him though and is a happy spoiled dog.

Sometime around 8:00 PM last night, I looked around and noticed he was gone. Like… vanished. Poof. Disappeared without a trace. We were clueless as to where he could be. When I noticed he was missing, I knew he couldn’t have been missing long because we remembered he was nudging Jack to pet him while Jack was playing a video game shortly before.

Jack and I searched the entire apartment complex and surrounding neighborhood till after 10:00 PM. Nothing. I called my mom’s house hoping her house-sitter would know something if someone had found him and called the number on his tags. No answer. I tried calling my mom on her cell phone. No answer.

I had a fitful night’s sleep. Over and over I played out in my mind how I would tell my mom that we lost her precious dog. I was sick to my stomach over it. This morning I got up and called the Humane Society. They said I needed to come down and fill out a lost dog report and then I could look around. So that’s what we did. Nothing.

At 10:00 AM we decided to go door to door of everyone in our complex to see if anyone knew anything. When we reached the duplex directly behind us, our neighbor said, yes! They saw him… try next door.

Jack ran next door and sure enough, there was my mom’s dog. Two women were in this apartment. They said he showed up and didn’t want to leave. So they took him in and babied him. Gave him a bath and it appears they groomed him as well. He did have his collar on but his tags were missing. Maybe my mom took them off for some reason. I’m not sure. They seemed reluctant, no.. more like disappointed to have to give him up. They said they were going to take him out on a leash today to see if anyone knew where he came from… but I don’t know. They seemed glad to have a new dog, lol!

Our guess is he got out and went sniffing around and got confused about where he was supposed to go. All the duplexes in this complex look the same. I’m glad he found some nice people to keep him safe and sound and well cared for the night.

I’m not sure what we’ve learned from this. It wasn’t like we were neglecting him or not paying attention. We go in and out of the house a lot to throw stuff away, or take out recycling. One of us or the kids could’ve taken a pop can out there and not noticed that he slipped out behind us. Who knows what really happened. All I know is that I’m so glad he’s back here with us and that I don’t have to tell my mom we lost her dog forever.