Thursday Thursday: Happy Juneteenth

Who let the dogs out?

I woke up this Juneteenth morning, panicked that my dogs hadn’t returned from their adventure.

Charlie, the black border collie and Swiftie, the English creme golden retriever, had escaped our back yard, exploiting a gap in our defenses.

I was at a meeting on Capitol Hill when I heard about the escape, last night. My wife had called, with a bit of desperation in her voice. Not only had the dogs escaped, but my daughter and her friend were lost in the woods, trying to find them.

I had generally assumed that everything was going to be alright because the woods are literally right next to our new house, and the dogs often find themselves partying outside the fence.

They always turn up, I assured Kerry, my wife. And I wasn’t that worried about the kids, although there was a rushing river and the rain storm was intensifying.

Sure enough, the kids returned and they seemed no worse the wear, although our neighbor Adrienne insisted they jump in the shower to guard against poison ivy and whatever also you find in forest.

The dogs, on the other hand, did not show up.

And that is the great thing about our neighborhood or just about any neighborhood in America. We might not always agree on politics (I can do without the lectures from the neighbor who says that Virginia doesn’t need pipelines, for example). But if there is one thing that unifies most of my neighbors, it is dogs. Or most specifically, lost dogs.

Soon, the list serve was alive with advice and possible sightings.

“I think I saw Swiftie go that way”, said Nancy. “I wish I had your phone number,” she said. Me too, I thought.

I got home from my meetings and started to drive around the rolling hills of our new block in McLean. Kerry and Adrienne walked around, shouting “Swiftie! Charlie!”

Soon, it was dark. I parked my car and took one last walk around. It was steamy and very, very dark. Kind of creepy. I saw a big dog-like figure. It was light colored, but maybe too big to be a dog. I shouted “Swifte” but the animal slinked away in the night.

I am new to suburbs and not smart enough to enough if that was some sort of mountain lion or wolf or maybe just a big dog not named Swiftie. Or it could have been a figment of my imagination.

No matter what it was, I had enough. I went back home.

My wife was very upset (it was her idea to get both dogs). I tried to reassure here. “They will show up. I have faith.”

But she was worried about the dogs spending the night outside. The creek in our backyard forest had turned into a rushing river. Hopefully our dogs were not stupid enough to dive in.

I spent a fitful night on the couch, next to the door where the dogs would come if they were the smart enough to figure out how to get back home. At one point during the night, I thought I saw Charlie, but the black form on the step was another figment of my imagination.

Kerry had to fly to Tallahassee that morning for a family event, and none of the despair that she was feeling about the dogs had subsided. I brewed a pot of coffee and got ready to launch a new search.

I was going to call the local animal shelter to see if either one of the dogs or maybe both of them had appeared there. But they were closed. It was Juneteenth.

Boy, I thought. Everybody is taking this new holiday pretty seriously. You give public employees a new holiday and believe me, they are going to take advantage of it.

My friend Julie sent me a Facebook message. She saw my Facebook post Swiftie and Charlie and she had a friend who was a tracker of lost dogs. She advised “better to do it sooner rather than later.”

Kerry had left for the airport, and I jumped in my car, not yet willing to hire a tracker quite yet. As I entered the car, a friend of Kerry’s Amanda called. She was willing to take me to the different spots where she always finds her dogs. I appreciated the offer and was already driving to one of the spots that she recommended.

And then I got a call from Kerry. She got a text from somebody saying that Swiftie was found and he was at an animal shelter 30 miles away.

She worried that the place was closed because it was Juneteenth.

But I reasoned somebody’s got to be there. They have to feed the dogs. Animal shelters are kind of like hospitals. No matter what the holiday might be, somebody has to feed the patients.

And so I drove off to the Fairfax County Animal shelter. I rang the bell and some nice lady (clearly a dog lover) came out. “Yes, we have Swiftie.” she said.

You wouldn’t happen to have seen a little black dog that came in with our white one? I asked.

“As a matter fact, we did.”

I almost hugged her. Yes, our two dogs, neither of which I really wanted in the first place, had travelled together from McLean to this animal shelter, 30 miles away.

How they got there, who found them, how they survived all night in the wild? All a mystery to me and probably to them.

Did they see the mysterious phantom big cat/fox/wolf that I saw late at night? Who knows? Did they run the rapids? Did they get anything to eat?

Once again, no clue.

But one thing we do know. The little black dog and the bigger white dog made it through the night together. They were unified in their commitment to each other and to their ultimate survival. What a great message on Juneteenth.

And when I saw them come out the door of the kennel, they were unified in their happiness in seeing me. They both gave me some huge licks as their tails wagged, pleased that their adventure had come to an end.

So a toast to Juneteenth and the return of our dogs. These guys had the adventure of a lifetime. Let’s not make this a regular thing.