My name is Coco. I'm a Runner and An Escape Artist.

Last Wednesday night I get a call about dinner time from the woman who does the boarding job on Wednesday nights.

She tells me that a dog was GONE.

Escaped out of the yard.

She's assuming that the dog, Coco went up and over the 6 ft fence.

She's called Animal Control and I tell her to call Doc, the vet and owner of the clinic. In the meantime I quickly call my niece Lily. She said she would come with me. So Lily and Jimmy (my terrier mix) and I head over.

Coco is not much of a people-dog but might come to another dog. I'm sick with the fear that this 10 yr old dog will be dead on the street that's one block from the clinic. It's the busiest street in all of the 4 cities.

There is always fast and heavy traffic. This area of town is full of new businesses and just a few blocks from the Interstate and yet it is also surrounded by cornfields and sections of woods. I tried to get there as fast as possible but it probably took us almost 30 minutes.

I swear we hit every red light. We were coming up the main 4 lane One-Way street and I don't know why but I turned and cut across, so that we could come up a different road. Just as we were almost to that busy street, out of the cornfields to the left SPRINGS the dog Coco and darts across the road!

If I would have been 5 seconds faster, I would have hit her.

I screamed "Crap!" and do a U-turn.

We jump out of the van and I yell "Coco" and as she flies across the field, 2 other cars pull up. Coco looks at me for a spilt second and continues to run. I turn and yell to Lily "RUN!" and she takes off over the cut cornfield.

A lady from one of the cars said they been after the dog since seeing her cross another busy street blocks away. The other couple saw her as she sprinted across the parking lot of a restaurant they were leaving.

I'm hearing this as I'm jumping back into the van and then I floor it down the side road. I stop ahead of them, but Coco veers up into the woods.

I yell to Lily to get back in the van and we head back out onto the busy road. The van roars down the street and we swerve into the parking lot on the other side of the woods.

No Coco.

I back out of there and then see a dirt/grass road leading into the woods and next to the railroad tracks, and we pull in. We jump out and are hurrying down the tracks going deep into the woods screaming COCO!

We can hear others yelling Coco from the parking lot. Eventually I tell Lily to go on and I turn and climb up through some brush so that me & Jimmy are back up in the cornfields again, just in case she's circled around.

Then I'm RUNNING. I mean RUNNING!

and that is something that I never do, but I was.

Finally I stop. Jimmy is panting heavily. Sweat is pouring into my eyes. I'm blinded.

I turn back and run some more.

I call for Lily, Nothing.

So now I'm screaming out for both Coco and Lily. I climb (fall) down a hill and I'm back by the tracks on the road. There's that woman again, talking to a cop in a police car. He wants to know what's going on. He just had a report of 2 stolen cars and he saw my van and her car behind it.

We tell him about the dog and he says he'll keep his eyes open.

The woman tells me that her husband is down in the creek-bed looking too. We start down the tracks. The woman said she changed her shoes into tennis shoes (she's dressed nice) and she starts to loudly whistle.

FINALLY... we see Lily and she's got Coco.

Apparently the tracks come to a place that go over the creek and Coco was there and had hesitated. She would have to make her way across just on the tracks.

 Lily said she talked to her and said

"Come on, let's go home. Ya wanna a treat?"

She said Coco looked at her and then turned and looked down at the side of the ditch below, just above the creek. Coco was about to jump when Lily dove on top of her and wrestled her down.

So, we all walk back towards the van and here comes this woman's husband in dress slacks and pressed dress shirt. He had been down in the water. I keep thanking them for helping.

They said they had to, that they are "dog people".

Then we load everyone into my van and head for the clinic. My Boarding Person is there at the door talking to the Animal Emergency Center on her cell, in case Coco has been hit on the road and found.

When she sees me slide open the van door and sees Coco laying on Blue's pillow, she starts sobbing.

 

So, that's how we spent last Wednesday night.

Lily is a hero.

At work the next day, one of the receptionist says to me.

"Oh yeah, apparently she broke out of her Gorilla Crate at home and that's why she's here, since they can't contain her while they are gone".

To say I was pissed is putting it VERY lightly.

The receptionist couldn't understand why I was mad. I told her that she needs to share info like that. That's something we need to know. My Boarding Person would never have let her down in the fenced area by herself if she had known.

The receptionist still couldn't get the correlation between breaking out of a strong crate at home and kenneling with us. I explained why to her and I'm sure that it will never happen again.

Later, I Googled Coco's owners address on Mapquest.

If you follow the railroad tracks down through the woods and past the cemetery for about a mile, it comes out on the street where Coco lives.

I showed Lily and her eyes got wide and she looked at me and said

"She was headed home".