The Search Continues

This morning I set out again to hunt for Sweetie, moving farther out from the camp and encountering lots of "Private, No Trespassing" signs, but I kept on. One man offered to refill my coffee and invited me into his small cabin, heated by a wood stove on which a percolator sat. He showed me the baby squirrels he and his wife were fostering after the tree that held their nest fell down. And he said that he would spread the word.

We paid for another night so we could continue the search. Ken and I walked all over the area again.

As the day wore on, I began to lose hope. We printed up Lost Dog posters and took them to the post office five miles east and to a Forest Service campground 1/2 mile west. We stopped at a river access sport east of the park and drove back in a rough rocky road and walked along the river. We called the local veterinarians and animal control, but no one had any news. I was imagining Sweetie stuck somewhere, so I looked carefully under all the cabins and trailers in the park and in every nook and cranny.

Move people were arriving at the park, since it was the beginning of the weekend. One man took his small dog and hunted for Sweetie for two hours. Everyone was concerned and promised to let us know if they saw her.

I found a way down to the river I hadn't seen before and looked along the banks. The path to the river made a switchback around a little meadow in a depression. I circled around and searched east of the campground again. Finally I folded up Sweetie's kennel and picked up her dishes. I was pretty sure I'd never see her again. I thought to myself that I might find her body, that perhaps she hadn't turned up because she'd gone off somewhere to die.

After supper I set out for one last search before dark. As it grew dark, I started back, and suddenly saw Ken waving his hands in the air and calling to me. Sweetie was home! Three of the teenage girls who'd been riding bikes around the campground had spotted her in a meadow down near the river (the very one I'd searched a couple of hours earlier) and rescued her. They hadn't even known there was a lost dog.

I went to find Sweetie's rescuer, who turned out to be a girl named Jasimine. She told me she had spotted Sweetie in the meadow near the river, and the other two girls had not wanted to go down to get her. Jasimine had climbed down into the meadow and had called "Come here, sweetie" as she got near. Sweetie was shivering but came over to Jasimine. As you can imagine, we were relieved and grateful to have our little dog back.

I took a thank you note and reward to Jasimine--we certainly owed her a lot of thanks! We went to bed with our little household intact again.