What was that over there under that brush? Was it her? I slammed on the brakes, and even before the car stopped I called her name out the window.

It was one of the most agonizing experiences of my life to date. It might come in second only to losing one of my children, although I’ve never had that experience, and hope never to have it. But, I have experienced a strong bond with this dog over the last six months, and for her to be missing was terror. Scarlette is my girl. She’s more my dog than anyone else’s in the family, which is unusual for dogs in our house (The other three we have or have had were/are Donna’s in terms of bonding.). Scarlette comes to work with me often, goes with me on errands, and even runs with me. And as I watched her sprint away from me in the darkness, fleeing from the loud explosions of fireworks, I said my first prayer. “Please, God, let her come back.”

Scarlette was excited to go with us to the tree-lighting on Jekyll. Heck, she’s excited to go anywhere we go. She whines to get in the garage every morning when I take the girls to school so that she can jump in the back and go along. On the rare occasions she doesn’t go through the carpool line with us she is beside herself at home. And I was excited for her to go with us. She’s that kind of dog; it’s fun to take her places. I hadn’t really paid attention – not fully – to the fact that there would be fireworks and what that might mean for Scarlette. Had I done so I wouldn’t have brought her along. But in my excitement for her to make the family outing, I made an admittedly poor decision.

She was having a great time as we joined the crowd on the lawn where the band was playing and the tree sat in darkness. Children were coming up to pet her and she was content to sit at my feet as we waited. The first sign of unease came as the crowd started to count down for the tree’s lighting. After it was lit and the crowd cheered I knew I had to get her out of there. As the first firework went off I told Donna that I had to get Scarlette away and started to take her out the way we had come in. She stayed at the far end of the leash from me as we started to weave our way through the crowd, but she panicked and I couldn’t get close enough to her. She thrashed and pulled as I was stuck wending my way between people, and she pulled out of her collar just shy of the back of the crowd. With that she was off down the shell road, a brown and black blur. I ran after her, moving at a comparatively much slower speed, and soon lost sight of her as she changed direction.

That was when my own fight or flight response set in. I had been calling her and communicating with her via her training collar, but with her own flight response and corresponding adrenaline, it was no use. She wasn’t coming back that easily. People who could tell I was chasing after her pointed the way, one saying, “Good luck! She was flying!” A parking attendant pointed me towards a man with a walkie-talkie to help get the word out. The man with the radio turned out to be the most unhelpful and least sympathetic man I encountered that night. Everyone else was genuinely concerned and wanted to help however they could. He didn’t care at all and reluctantly made a radio call only when I begged him to do so. Laughingly, he finally said he had seen her run down the road and, he thought, turn right, towards the causeway.

I hadn’t planned on doing that much walking. I wasn’t wearing the best shoes for it, but I managed to run-walk all the way to the causeway, calling for Scarlette and asking anyone I saw if they had seen her. No one had. On my way I texted Donna that I had lost her. We spoke by phone and she started to make her way back to the car with the girls to search in the opposite direction. I said my second kind of prayer on the phone, in part spoken to Donna, in part to Scarlette, and in part as a confession: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” We both quickly realized we had a problem with our search: traffic. There were hundreds of cars, maybe a thousand, crammed in everywhere along every road on the south end, and now that the tree was lit everyone was leaving. In no time it was gridlock as people all streamed to the one exit off the island. My feet began to hurt, that kind of pain that says, “You’re going to have blisters from this one, buddy,” but I kept walking.

As I walked I called the GA State Patrol on Jekyll and told them what was going on. They took Scarlette’s description and my info and emailed their troopers on duty. I called Glynn County Police and Glynn County Animal Control. I left a pre-emptive message with the Humane Society. I quickly posted her missing on the local lost pet Facebook page. I even sent a message to the Rescue we adopted her from in case her microchip wasn’t actually updated with our information. I walked and walked for almost ninety minutes while Donna and the girls drove around. Finally we connected and drove a bit more. I stopped by the fire station, and anyplace else we could think of, but we didn’t see her, nor had anyone else. At that point we realized it was getting late and that the girls in the back seat, who were not taking this very well, needed to get to bed. It was a hard decision, but I said that we should take the girls home and I would come back alone and continue the search. As we got on the causeway, I said out loud, “I’m coming back for you, Scarlette.”

The good news was that Scarlette had her training collar on, which has an LED light on it for use at night. I had turned the light on so that people would be less likely to trip on her in the dark. I had also put her backpack on her – a red canvas set of saddlebags both of our big dogs have used on hikes. I had figured that if she was nervous in the crowd at all the backpack would help. “Wearing” things seems to help Scarlette, in particular, stay calmer, and it makes her feel like she has a job to do. It had reflective strips on both sides of it, which, when I remembered them, allowed me to hope it would be enough for Scarlette to avoid getting hit by a car. Donna grimly offered a thanksgiving that she hadn’t been seriously injured by a car already, or we would have seen her or gotten a call from the Island authorities. A small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless, it was on my mind as I sped back to Jekyll with the charger for her collar controller and some snacks. It might be a late night.

Upon my return I drove more than forty miles on the south end of Jekyll, methodically searching on every road I could find. I know I drove that many miles because the first thing I did when I got back on the Island was to go to the gas station and fill up the car and get some caffeine, resetting the odometer as I always do. It was while paying for my drink that I asked the cashier if she had heard or seen of a runaway German Shepherd. “No,” she said, with a look of concern, “but I hope you find her.” From my right the other cashier called over, “Did she have a little red backpack?” She explained that she had seen her a couple of hours earlier, not long after the fireworks, out front of the gas station. She had been scared of her, not an uncommon response for people to have with Germans Shepherds, and told her friend about this “scary” dog on the loose. But she hadn’t seen her since. That was still good news. Until then, no one had seen her since I lost sight of her.

So my forty miles took me back and forth on the same roads, sometimes going in opposite directions on roads I’d already searched. I checked parking lots, service areas, and I got to meet a very nice GA State Patrolman when I went down the service road behind the Dairy Queen. He quickly figured out who I was from his dispatcher’s email and said he’d be on duty for several hours and would call if he saw her. He wished me well and went back to his own patrolling. I stopped at the lobby of most hotels and asked if any guests had reported seeing her. I stopped folks who were strolling along enjoying Jekyll late into the night, and was always met by folks who were sympathetic and as helpful as they could be. Once, when I circled back around near the convention center, I saw and heard a group of four calling out Scarlette’s name as they walked. No one saw her, though, nor did I. Every small deer, and one quite large fox would make my heart race when I saw them, but that was all I saw.

At 11:30 a friend who saw my Facebook post texted me that he was willing to come help look if I wanted his help. I politely tried to insist that I was fine and wouldn’t be looking much longer, although I knew that I wasn’t leaving without her. He saw through my polite insistence, and said he was on his way. It’s not easy for me to accept help, especially when it involves someone driving all that way so late at night, but I texted my sincere thanks and kept looking as he made his way to Jekyll. I Looked, and looked, and looked some more. And here is where I need to tell a little side story from our vacation travels this past summer.

Part of our family vacation this year was a return to northern Vermont where we had visited family friends at their farm a few years ago. We enjoyed it then and were delighted to go up and stay for a few days again this year. The last time we were there we went on a “moose hunt”, heading over to “Moose Alley” in New Hampshire in the hopes of seeing moose in the wild. We were practically guaranteed a moose sighting by our host. He said he’d never gone and not seen a moose. Well, we didn’t see a moose that trip, ruining his record. On our return trip this year he wasn’t going to make a prediction, but as we drove back toward prime moose-sighting territory I made the prognostication that we would definitely see a moose. I told the girls they would see one. And we did. Not just one, but several, including one of the best, close-up prolonged sightings our host had seen. He gave me credit for saying it would be so. I don’t think I really made it happen, and yet when I made the prediction I also knew it would come true. I’m not sure how.

As it got closer to midnight, I added a similar assurance for myself: I was going to find Scarlette. By this time I had prayed for Scarlette and myself several times. I had prayed that God might help me find Scarlette, and yet as it got later and later I began to falter. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to find her. Maybe someone had picked her up. Maybe her backpack had gotten snagged on brush in the woods and she was stuck. Maybe she was struck by a car and had only had enough strength to get off the road far enough that she couldn’t be seen. So I said it again, to myself, perhaps as a roundabout prayer or statement of faith: “I’m going to find Scarlette.”

All night long my search had centered on the section of the island north of the causeway and east of the historic district. I made a lot of passes through the convention center area, along Great Dunes Beach, and in the neighborhoods near the golf course. Scarlette could have gone any direction, and she could have gone a long way. This is the dog who runs up to five miles with me. Add in some adrenaline, and she could’ve gone anywhere. But I had a feeling she was in that area. So as I waited for my friend to get there, I made another pass along Shell Road and turned south along Great Dunes beach to go back and meet up with him at the Dairy Queen. As I drove, I thought my eyes caught something off to the left. Was it red? Was that a tiny bit of reflective material? What was that over there under that brush? Was it her? I slammed on the brakes, and even before the car stopped I called her name out the window.

I noticed her ears first, those unmistakable Germans Shepherd ears. All I could see was a shadow shaped like a German Shepherd’s head as it rose up above the pine straw. I stepped out of the car towards her before I realized the gearshift wasn’t in park. I called her again as I jumped back in my seat and threw the car in park, and she slowly crept across the road towards me. It was her! She was limping terribly, and clearly in pain, but as she made her way to me and sat down in the road her eyes also said she was relieved to see me. She walked awkwardly behind me as I went to the back of the car and opened the hatch, but she couldn’t jump in. I lifted her in and did a preliminary check. I couldn’t see any blood and her legs and hips weren’t causing her to cry out as I gently squeezed them. I hugged her and shut the hatch.

As soon as I was back in the driver’s seat I voice texted Donna: “I Gotter!” (…sometimes voice to text doesn’t work perfectly.) I don’t know if I called Donna or she called me, but I told her I was taking Scarlette to the Dairy Queen to check her out in the light. Along the way, I uttered my final prayer for the evening, although not for the last time: Thank you.

To shorten an already long story, based on her limping I was afraid Scarlette had been hit by a car, so I took her to the Brunswick Pet ER,

with which I was already acquainted from Sasha’s health emergencies last year. It turned out that there was no indication of a car strike, but as the result for running for hours on rough terrain, concrete, and asphalt, she had torn up many of the pads on all four feet. She will have a bit of a painful recovery as they heal up – there’s not much to be done about it; she has to walk on them. She has pain meds and antibiotics, and in a few weeks she’ll be back to normal. That night we both fell asleep quickly when we finally got home after 2 am. I was so relieved to have found her, and she, no doubt, to be found, that we slept soundly until my alarm went off.

As I reflect on this whole experience, I can recognize a few things. I experienced a great deal of anxiety and fear, on a level I hadn’t experienced before, or at least in a way I hadn’t experienced before. As most of you know by now, I love my dogs a great deal. It was as close to losing a child as I ever hope to get. I also experienced a level of guilt that I had not known previously. I made a poor choice that put my companion in danger, literally mortal danger. Had something happened to her, I would have had a very hard time forgiving myself. And, I also realize that once again, when put to the test, I have a faith in God that is real. Prayer helped me keep my cool, and was indeed a comfort. It’s always a nice reminder that when the rubber meets the road all that stuff I preach about is not just lip service!

I am not one to think that God has a preference for my lost dog over all the other concerns in the world, and yet I was aware of a feeling of God’s presence and care nonetheless. I am also not one who tends to think that God causes things to happen in response to prayer, per se, at least not in terms of miraculously giving us whatever we ask for (I’ve had far too many instance of not getting what I prayed for), and yet the act of prayer opens us up to things that perhaps we would be closed to otherwise. As William Temple is credited with saying, “When I pray, coincidences happen, and when I don’t they don’t.” For instance, the belief that I could find Scarlette, and the belief that God was with me likely made the difference in paying attention to a brief glimpse of color and sparkle in the shadows. Without an authentic hope I probably wouldn’t have been looking so intently. It also helped me to stay with it, even as I got tired and my hope waned a bit over the course of the five hours of searching. And if Scarlette hadn’t had her backpack on I would never have noticed her with her natural and perfect camouflage for pine straw and underbrush in the dark. A wonderful coincidence indeed.

My other realization centers on everyone else. With the exception of the man with the walkie-talkie, everyone I met or spoke to, every single one of them a stranger, responded with compassion. I don’t know why I’m a little surprised to realize that. I tend to believe in the inherent goodness of people, and yet I was humbled and heartened by people’s concern. I have had notes from folks via Facebook who I’ve never met. Two different people who I spoke to on Jekyll later saw the posting online and sent messages letting me know how worried they were that night and how happy they were that she was found safe and nearly sound. The woman who works with the horse drawn carriages even told me she made a pass looking for Scarlette.

And of course, in posting Scarlette’s misadventure on Facebook, both she and I were lifted up in prayer, even from people I don’t even know. Folks, prayer matters. It makes a difference, and that difference is palpable. Again, I don’t even begin to pretend that a lost dog measures up to a spouse with cancer, for example, and yet I can say that in that terrible moment of my little life and my moment of fear and dismay, those prayers were a balm and a source of strength. This is why it is important that we pray for one another. It matters, and it’s a part of being in community and loving one another.

That’s it. That’s my story, a story that I have been getting emails about over the last few days. If the story sounds a bit dramatic, well, it was dramatic from where I was sitting. Scarlette is already walking a more easily, and in another couple of weeks she’ll be back to normal. Fortunately, this story has a happy ending. I wish they all did, even though I know they don’t. And that makes this one even better.

Tom+

O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.