Point Taken...

Louie disappeared this evening. 

For all intents and purposes, he is all black, so seeing him beyond the swingset is near impossible.  One minute he was there, the next minute he was gone.  Jason started the search, but when I laughingly came out and asked if he'd found Louie and he said "No," I joined in. 

I was searching close to the house and realized that as grown up as Charlie is, we really couldn't both be out and about searching, so I went in -- Charlie quickly let me know that I was not his preferred parent of the moment, so I grabbed Otis and sent him on a recon mission then sent Jason inside.

While Otis happily chased Oakley, I scoured the perimeters of our house, Bob's house and Garret's house -- as far as Louie had ever been, but I kept hearing a high-pitched barking from up near Butternut.  So, certain that that was Louie calling for me, stuck in some hole or something, I headed up the mud road and into the brush...in my flip flops...without my cell phone. 

After about fifteen minutes I heard Jason yelling for Louie and realized he'd successfully put Charlie down and was back on the hunt...not a good sign.  A dozen puddles and a ditch later, after stopping many times when the barking stopped, waiting for it to start up again, I gave up and began the trudge home, picturing Jason's, Charlie's and even Otis' faces when Louie still wasn't back by tomorrow. 

I realized that as annoying as it is to have to take him out in the rain every 30 minutes and still clean up his messes as soon as we come back in, I've grown to love the little critter over the past week. And as territorial and spoiled as Otis is, he would be lost without him...not to mention Charlie.  Jason would probably take it best of any of us, and it's his dog.

About one hundred yards from home I saw Jason shining his flashlight my way.  I glumly shined mine at him...hoping he realized it wasn't a sign of success, hating the thought of him believing I'd found Louie when in fact I'd just given up.

Then Jason yelled, "I've got him".  I was stunned.  I was prepared to learn and suffer from all the lessons having to do with neglecting our pets by looking away for a minute and not having a fence and the trauma this would cause Otis and Charlie, etc...but Louie was found!

He'd been in Bob's garage the entire time!  Did I mention that I saw the pedestrian door open and was going to look, but got distracted by the distant dog barks.  Yeah...

So, Louie's fine.  My OluKai's are quite possibly ruined.  Otis and Charlie are pleasantly sleeping.  And me, well I realized that as annoying as dog pee is, Louie is one of the family and I wouldn't have it any other way.

The genius figuring out the dog bowl

The genius figuring out the dog bed

Our Louie