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I've had quite the exciting past couple of days. Thought, perhaps, I should talk about them. I'm sure it's a story you'd like to hear too. Well, maybe not. Nobody reads this trife anyway.

So, I have some pets in my house. Specifically, a cat and two dogs. The cat stays indoors. The dogs are primarily outdoors, but retire indoors for the night. All around, they're some cute little animals we've got running amok.

Recently, the electric collars on our doggies have gone kaput. They've come to realize this, and have been leaving the electric fence. It was distressing, but nothing too serious had come of it. But then yesterday happened.

I was upstairs, trying to write a document, when I got a notice from my father. He said that he found one of our dogs, the girl one, in our driveway. He was worried to where the boy one could have gone. I was shocked by the news, and volunteered to help him find the other one. My father told me to get my sister, and we would start the search.

So, I got my sister, and we started by searching around the yard. My sister drove us on a golf cart, as I repeatedly called out our dog's name. When we couldn't find him at the front or back of the house, we went out to the subdivision across the street. She continued to drive us down the long road, as I kept shouting the name of our dog. Though he was nowhere to be found. By the time we got back to the yard, our father was screaming at the top of his lungs (To be fair, he was riding a loud lawnmower at the time.) for us to look at the subdivision. We told him that we already looked there. Seems he wanted us to look again.

My sister and I continued our search by looking through the rest of the neighborhood. We passed by one house, and an old man heard us calling. He asked us if we lost any dogs. Apparently, he saw our dog go by, walking in the opposite direction than we were. With that useful tip in mind, my sister turned the golf cart around so we could pursue him.

Unfortunately, she fell off the road, and got us stuck in a small ditch to the side. She tried to drive back onto the road, but when that failed, we had to get out and push the cart. That didn't work either. After all, a girl and a trap aren't strong enough to push a cart out of a ditch. It was taking too long, and we were getting nowhere, so we agreed that we would continue our search on foot.

We ran off in the direction the old man pointed us to. However, my sister got out of breath. She said that she'd go back to get the cart, and I'd have to continue on foot by myself. And so, I went off. The path lead me near some woods, and I was worried that our dog could've gotten lost in them. But it took me around the woods, up a nearby hill. At the top of the hill was our nearest church. (We can hear its bells every Sunday morning from where we live.) I was halfway up the hill when my sister returned with the golf cart. We drove to the top together, and still couldn't find our dog.

I didn't know at the time just how she got the golf cart out. At first, I assumed that she just kept pushing by herself until she got it back on the road. But a lot later, she would tell me that the old man helped her. And as a bonus, he had referred to me as a "she", believing both my sister and I to be female. Glad to know I'm still in the trap business.

It was a worrying possibility that our dog could have wandered off even farther than the hill. It seemed that we had to look, but there was one problem. The golf cart only had so much electricity. A journey like that would deplete us before we could make the trip back home. So I proposed that we get our dad involved, and he could drive us in something that has a little more fuel in it.

But first, my sister wanted to check the subdivision again. She was the driver, so we did so. Though I complained the whole time, trying to get it through her thick skull that she was wasting her time coming through here. If our dog was here, we would have found him earlier. I tell you, some people have no common sense.

(Speaking of common sense, here's an unrelated tangent. When I was young, and my debating skill weren't too good, I would almost always lose arguments with my parents. Now that I'm older, I've been talking less with emotion, and more with rationality and evidence. It's them who get emotional now, when I properly refute them. Strange how things work like that, huh? They still have the authority though, so I can't really win when I win.)

Once we were back, I got our father's help with our search, and he agreed to drive us in his truck. Unfortunately, there were only two seats, for the driver and passenger. My sister and I were going to have to sit on top of the back of the truck. As cool as it seems, it was also terrifying. I had to make him guarantee that he'd go slow with us on top of it.

As he drove, I got too scared, and he eventually let me sit in the passenger's seat. I asked if we could bring my sister in as well, and cram her between the seats (We've done that in the past, when we're making a trip in his truck.), but she said she was fine up there. As concerned as I kinda was, I trusted her to it. And besides, if anything happened to her, I should probably be happy. I wouldn't have to deal with her crap ever again.

We drove past the hill, and around a whole block, hollering our dog's name the whole time. However, we still couldn't find him. There seemed nothing else that we could do, so my dad just drove through the subdivision again. But it was then that we finally got some help. A local woman in the neighborhood claimed to know something about our missing dog.

She said that there was another woman, a blonde in a white SUV, who had found our dogs walking in the road. The blonde tried to coax our dogs into her car so she could rescue them. However, she could only get one of them, and said she'd take them to her house as she tried to find the owner. Obviously, the dog she took was our missing one. The one she couldn't coax came back to our house. The witness said that the woman lived in a house across from a church, so we should go there.

We were tasked with finding a blonde lady with a white SUV who lived across from a church. That was our new lead to finding our dog.

We drove around, and checked all the churches in the nearby area. There were a couple of white SUVs, but apparently no such blonde woman existed. Nobody there had ever seen our dog. (But on the plus side, one of the people we asked referred to me as a "she". Always nice when that happens.) My dad was starting to think that our witness meant something different when she said, "lived across from a church". She could have been referring to a road with "church" in the name.

With not many options left, my dad told us to make a "Missing Dog" sign to place outside our house. He told us that there was a "For Rent" sign in his workshop, and that we should cover it in blue tape, and write "Missing Dog" on it. We did as he said, and even wrote his cell phone number, so people could call us if they found our dog.

The sign was completed, so now we just had to place it at the end of our driveway. That way, anyone going in and out of the nearby subdivision would see it. As my sister and I tried to get the sign's legs into the ground (A girl and a trap still aren't strong enough for these tasks), a neighbor came by with more information. He provided us the exact address of the woman who took our dog. Now, we just had to fetch our dad, and go to the address.

We went in my car, this time. This was a car bought with my own money, which was gifted to me by my rich grandma. My car had back seats, so nobody had to sit on top of the back this time. My dad drove, since now was not the time for another driving lesson for me. And we quickly found the house we were looking for. Turns out it really was across from a road with "church" in the name. And there was a white SUV parked outside.

All three of us walked out of the car, and knocked on the front door. We heard a barking from inside, and another dog peered out from the window. Seems this woman was an animal lover, and had lots of dogs. We heard the dogs running around inside the house, but nobody came to answer the door. It was as if nobody was home. That was strange, however, as their car was clearly parked outside. My father supposed that this house had more than one car, and that she might have left in another one.

Seemed we had come so close, only to meet a dead end. Nothing left to do but write her a note for when she gets back. My dad got a pen out of the car, and a UPS envelope that was in there from when UPS came that morning. He tore part of the envelope off, writing "Missing Dog" and his cell number on it. Then, he left it on top of a package that was near the woman's house. He was certain that she'd notice it when she came to pick up her delivery.

We ended our search for the day, and went back home to order new parts for our dogs' electric collars.

Then, we come to today. This morning felt rather lonely and depressing with only one dog. I wanted both of them here. Our remaining dog seemed pretty sad too. She was almost never separated from her brother in her whole life.

According to my sister, my parents got in touch with the mysterious woman. Seems this lady had taken our dog, and donated him to a local animal shelter. She gave my mother the address, and she had to go over there to buy him back. This whole re-adoption of our pet costed her about $42, and my mother wasn't happy about it.

As for me, I was glad to have my dog back. One of the first things I did after he was re-adopted was hug him. And my mother took a photo of my sister and I with our dogs. What a lovely picture, two girls and their puppies! <3

My mother says she's tested our dogs' current collars, and none of them work. She's going off to get some new electric collars. I told her that we have parts being delivered to us, but she wants to be on the safe side. I volunteered that my sister and I pay the costs for her, just so she's not carrying all the burden. She agreed to that, and so now we both owe her $70.

She's also saying that she's going to talk to the woman who found our dog, and try to get the $42 that her donation costed us. My mother says that she had kidnapped our dog, and had to be held accountable for it. As much as I was in favour of having this lady pay the cost, I thought that we could at least appreciate her. She kept our dog safe while he was missing. Who knows what would happen, had she not intervened?

Well, so my mother may have strong words for her, but I think I want to write her a letter of appreciation. It'll be something like, "I appreciate you finding our dog. Glad you kept him safe for us. Next time, though, just give him to us, instead of the animal shelter." But until then...

Be Right Back, World!