An Update To My Last Post

So, after sitting at the house waiting for about thirty minutes, I decided I better be proactive in my search for Brutus. If he would have taken off across the open field, I wouldn't have felt so worried, but he took off in the middle of the woods, so I was a little more concerned. There are a few miscellaneous fences throughout the woods, and my gut just didn't feel right, so off I went.

First, I walked back up and down the road calling for him. Not a sound. Ugh. My legs are going to be so sore tomorrow. This would be walk number three for today. It isn't that I don't need the exercise, but lets be serious here, I don't enjoy it! After not even hearing a leaf rustle, I decided to head back home and put on my thinking cap. Driving wasn't going to do any good because I wouldn't be able to hear him. We have a four wheeler, but it was my Dad's, and is a good thirty years old, and my chances of getting it to start are about zero, otherwise I would have been on that in a heartbeat. Brutus loves to chase the four wheeler, and that's how Don got him back when he went after the deer when they were on a walk. So, what's almost as good as a four wheeler? Yep, the riding lawn mower. I felt like such an ass. It's a good thing that I know all of my neighbors really well.

So yes my friends, I put on my heavy duty flip-flops and saddled up on the riding lawn mower. I made sure the blade was in the up position, and down the road I went. First I did the road, again with no success, next I decided to go in on the trails that run along the corn field, and another one that runs through the woods. Still no luck. I turned the mower off several times and just sat back in the woods and called for Brutus. I was hoping that if he was hurt he would cry out. He truly never barks. He was practically drowning one time at the end of the dock, and just let out a little whimper. I'm surprised Don found him, but when he did, Brutus had a rope twisted around his neck behind the pontoon boat. That rope is now gone.

On with the story. I had no luck. I came home defeated and heart broken. I had been standing in the house for about ten minutes when the phone rang, and it was our friend Gary who lives down toward the end of the road where Brutus had taken off into the woods. The first thing he asked was how my day was going. If you knew Gary, you would know that this is not a normal question to come out of his mouth. I can't repeat what would be! LOL!! He is a hoot. I knew immediately that he had my dog. He said that he didn't technically "have" him, but that Brutus had just been at his house, so I headed back down the road on foot, calling out his name. I got all the way down to Gary's house, and NO DOG. I can't even tell you how defeated I felt by this point. I turned around to start walking back toward the house, and I saw just the back side of him down the road taking the turn that you take in to the cul-de-sac that goes to our home. Thank God. He was finally heading home. It took me about fifteen minutes to get there myself, but I figured when I did, he would be sitting in his purple pool cooling off, but he wasn't. OH MY GOD!! By this point, I was livid.

He had his e-collar on, but up to this point I hadn't used it. I called for him for a good five minutes, and no dog. That was it. I pushed the zap button. Believe it or not, he came trotting up the back hill of the yard. I was just furious with him. We were going on three hours of this nonsense, and whether he was just being a dog or not, he hadn't listened at all, and I had had it. I marched him right in to the bath tub, bubbled him up with his skin healing shampoo, which he needed because his entire underside was all scraped up from going through the brush, cleaned his ears, which really made him mad, and then gave him a full hour time out in the laundry room. I have never done that before. I didn't shut the door, I just put up the baby gate. He whimpered once, and I told him to "knock it off", and I didn't hear another peep out of him. He has been pretty sheepish the rest of the day.

I love this boy. It's amazing how attached I get to my animals, and I have put nine months of daily training, and I'm talking full time down and dirty training in to this dog to get him to where he is today, and I wasn't about to lose him now. I have every protective device on him, like a micro-chip, and a collar with both of our addresses and our phone numbers on it, but like I said in my previous post, his free walking days are over, at least for a while. It's just too risky. Plus, deer hunting season is just around the corner, and if you put my boy next to a deer, he doesn't look all that different from a small doe.

So, long story short, he is safe. Maybe not happy, but safe, and loved. I am now making a cosmo and heading in to take a nice long bubble bath. I may have to put some baking soda in it to soothe all of my bug bites, damn it!!