When your dog turns 21

Let's face it. Parker has had a rough couple of months.

He's had to listen to a crying baby. He's been told "bed" more than ever. And, let's face it, he's moved down on the totem pole.

So I decided to have his girlfriend, Rooster, over for his birthday. I mean, who wouldn't want to see this cute thing??

 

No offense, Rachael. You are just as cute and I couldn't wait to see you either, Lover. Oh and sorry I stole this from your Facebook page. I couldn't find my dog park photos.

The evening started out alright. The boys went outside with the dogs to grill. The girls stayed inside and fed Bradley.

Then, we {the girls} decided to join the boys. Except there were no longer any dogs with the boys.

The boys were talking about who knows what, assumed the dogs somehow gotten back inside the house {magically}, and didn't concern themselves any further with the subject.

Until we came outside asking, "where are our beloveds?"

Yup. Then, it hit the fan.

Thankfully, I saw Rooster in our neighbor's yard immediately.

But Parker... He was gone.

 
This didn't surprise me too much. You see, when we take both dogs to the dog park, Rooster is the social butterfly. She runs and plays with all the other dogs. Parker is the weirdo who is running around the far end of the fence alone and as happy as can be.

And so our night went like this:

Immediately, the boys start walking and calling out to Parker.

Rachael grabs Rooster, puts her on a leash, and starts searching as well.

I grab Bradley, stick him in the stroller, and join them while thinking of ways to destroy my husband if something happens to our precious baby boy...

We all search for about 15 minutes with no luck so Jeremy grabs his bike and starts riding the nearby neighborhoods.

Just so you can get an idea of how frantic we all are you should know that we live on a busy street. It's not a neighborhood. It's a main road. It was also getting dark fast. And Parker is 9 lbs. and spoiled. There's no way he'd survive on his own for very long.

And I knew that the minute it got dark our chances of finding him were going to get much, much slimmer. My next move was to send out an SOS on Facebook.

And a minute after I sent it, my cell phone rings.

"Is this Parker?"

"You have my dog??????"

"Yes. He..uh..  wondered into our yard."

Can I just say that that phone call was the best phone call I'd received ever?? We are sooo fortunate that first Parker wasn't hit by a car, second, that someone didn't just steal him to sell, and, third, that they called me.

We came to realize more of how fortunate we were when we realized just where he had wondered to. It was a half mile down a windy road with no sidewalk and down into a neighborhood.

Our sweet, sweet friend ran the whole way to get him for us.

At the time, Jeremy was still searching on his bike. And when asked if I should call him and let him know, my response was easy, " No, let him keep searching. He needs to suffer a little more."

I mean, really? How do you lose our precious child on his birthday?? 

Now that time has passed I think we can all say we learned valuable lessons that night. Parker thinks he can be wild on his 21st birthday. The boys can't be trusted to do more than one thing at a time. And the kindness of a stranger really does have a huge impact.

We went on to celebrate with a delicious dinner that somehow didn't burn and sugar-free angel food cake that the dogs LOVED.

Let's hope we never have a repeat.

Ok, Parker??