A Very Scary Experience

On Thursday night, our precious Diesel ran away.  There were roofers working in our townhome complex and when I took him outside after work he got scared and ran away from me.  I tried to run after him, but he is very fast.

Now, anyone who knows Brian and me knows that Diesel is more than just a pet, he is a member of the family.  So, as you can imagine, I was scared out of my mind.  On Thursday night, I stayed out until 2am looking for him with no sightings.  Several friends came and helped look for him too, and no one saw him.

My mom and I spent all day Friday out looking for him and checking the humane society.  We also put up flyers. Still no sightings of him.

Saturday I spent the morning looking for him some more.  Since no one had seen him, it became very frustrating not knowing where to look for him.

Thankfully, Saturday afternoon I got a call that he had been seen.  A lady who takes her dog to the same daycare as Diesel and lives near us was out looking for him and had seen him in a semi truck trailer storage lot across one of the major roads that borders our subdivision.  I drove as fast as I could to get there, and when I got to that road, he was crossing the street.  When I called him, he came right to me.  Thank God he was found!

While this was an incredibly exhausting, scary, and traumatic experience for both myself and Diesel, it really shined a light on the incredible group of friends that I have in my life.  Here are a few examples:

• On the first night he was gone, two friends in the neighborhood and one of my 4-H families went out searching for him for several hours.  
• Diesel's daycare (Aspen Meadows Pet Resort) made flyers and the owner went out and searched for him for most of the day on Saturday. They also put out a message on Facebook, which is how the lady who found him knew he was missing.
• Our county 4-H extension agent searched with me until 2am on Thursday night/Friday morning and let me print flyers using the extension office copy machine
• Between my Facebook post, and the daycare's Facebook post, we got over 100 "shares".  Many from friends and many from people I do not know.  While I am not always a huge fan of Facebook, I believe this definitely led to his being found.
• My wonderful parents spent so much time searching with me, and keeping me from having emotional breakdowns every five minutes.  My mom even took the day off work on Friday and spent the whole day searching.
• My amazing husband, who is so far away, kept strong and helped me stay positive, despite how helpless he must have felt.
• The lady who found Diesel I don't believe I have ever met in person.  She takes her dog to the same daycare as Diesel and when she saw their Facebook post, she took it upon herself to go out looking for him.  I am so thankful she did because if she hadn't, I don't know if he would have been found!

Now my baby is home safe and sound.  I don't want to ever let him out of my sight again.