Kaylee's Adventure
From a story idea by Alex Reeves
Meet Kaylee and Strider. Strider is a hundred pound
chocolate lab and Kaylee is a 16 pound Shiz-Tzu. Although she is small, Kaylee
is the boss of the household. They are both VERY smart dogs.
They go to a park called the Bruce Pit almost every day for
a leash-free run so they can get their exercise and stay healthy. This trip is
the highlight of their day. They love it so much that their mom and dad had to
start using code words to talk about it. It used to be that if anyone in the
house said the words "park", "leash-free" or even the word
"go", Strider would always run and fetch his leash so his dad could
put it on and take them for the walk. Later, once their mom and dad had been
speaking in code for a while, the dogs even knew they were going for a walk
when they heard the words "The you-know-where", and also if anyone
spelled out "P, A, R, K". They were VERY smart dogs.
One day in November, Kaylee and Strider woke up early one
morning and must have decided it was a great day to go to the park. Strider
picked up both leashes and woke up their dad by standing next to the bed and
snorting, snuffing, shaking, coughing, and doing pretty much everything they
could to wake his dad up. In the end, Kaylee
just stood on her dad's chest and licked up his up nostrils which ALWAYS works.
The drive to the park only takes about 10 minutes and Kaylee
and Strider spend this time sniffing around the car and looking for any bits of
food that might have been dropped by someone in the family within the last day.
The rest of the time they look out the windows at passing cars and seem to try
and help their dad find his way to the park.
They got to the Bruce Pit nice and early, but there was
still LOTS of people there. It is a large fenced-in park with loads of paths
and trees as well as lots of other dogs for everyone to sniff. Strider and
Kaylee's dad always brings them a little way into the park before he takes off
their leash and their walk began for the day.
The humans at the park are always friendly as they are all
mostly "dog people", and the dogs tend to be pretty friendly as trips
to the park make sure they are all well-socialized and have learned how to get
along well with other dogs. Chris always says hi to the people while Strider
and Kaylee run off in various directions to see other dogs and do their
business.
They were about half-way around the park when Chris saw
Catherine! Catherine is an older English Bulldog that just LOVES to be made a
fuss of and to have her tummy rubbed. She ran up to Chris who was more than
happy to scratch her tummy while he talked to Catherine's dad.
Somehow, for the first time ever, Kaylee must have got
turned around while Chris was busy saying hi to the other dogs. She must have
seen a squirrel, or thought Chris and Strider were still walking and somehow got
separated. After all the other dogs had walked on Chris stood up and called for
Strider and Kaylee, but only Strider came running.
There was no one else around as just at that time it started
to rain. Chris waited where they had last seen Kaylee and called and called and
called her. Strider was quite upset and kept running into the woods to try and
find her but he kept coming back alone. Chris was starting to get worried.
After a while, Chris thought the best thing to try was to
walk along their regular path and ask people if they had seen a little wet dog
running alone. He hoped someone could at least tell him if they had seen her so
he knew which way to look. Chris and Strider circled the park five times and
spent almost 3 hours looking for her in the rain. Calling out her name and
asking people if they had seen her. But it was no use. Chris asked people and
everyone was empathetic and promised to keep an eye out for a lost dog. They
took Chris's cell number in case they found her.
From time to time someone would tell Chris they had seen a
little wet dog that looked like it had no owner, and that it was near the
parking lot. Chris and Strider would run to the parking lot only to be told by
someone else that they saw a little wet dog running back into the park alone.
Kaylee's mom and human brother, Julie and Alex, even drove in from home to help
look for Kaylee. They thought if they split up and searched in opposite directions
they would cover more ground. They were beginning to get worried. What would
they do if they couldn't find her?
They had just started to lose hope and were talking about
driving home to see if they should start calling the local animal shelters and
start putting up "lost dog" signs when Julie's phone rang. Almost two
years ago when they adopted Kaylee from a shelter, they had bought her a collar
and had put a tag on her collar that had Julie's cell-phone number engraved on
it. It was someone who had found Kaylee!!They saw Kaylee outside near their
house and found the number on the collar to call! Julie got the address and
they sped over there as fast as they could.
As it turns out, Kaylee had run around and around the park
looking for Strider and Chris. At some point she slipped through the fence
around the park and had ran almost a kilometer from the edge of the Bruce Pit!
Some nice people happened to be looking out their window and saw a sad looking
little dog huddled for warmth under a bush across the street. They were dog
people themselves and knew enough to lure Kaylee into their home with some warm
turkey they still had from Thanksgiving. They took her in, dried her with a
towel and found the phone number engraved on her collar and called it as soon
as they could.
When they got to the house and rang the bell, Kaylee pretty
much launched herself out of the door and into Chris's arms and began kissing
him. Her little tongue got into all the gross places that dogs love to find but
Chris didn't mind. He was happy just to have Kaylee back safe and warm. They
all thanked the nice people who found Kaylee and took the time to look for a
collar. They took Kaylee home and everyone got changed into some warm clothes.
Strider kept a good eye on Kaylee for the rest of the night and on every walk
after that.
The next day Chris took the time to buy some chocolates,
some flowers and a "thank you" card. Julie filled in the card and
Chris dropped it by the house. No one was home as they must have all been at
work, but when they got home, they would have a nice surprise to thank them for
helping reunite Kaylee with her family.
Microchipping and tags
Others helping
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