December 16, 2023
I woke up at 10:30 p.m. I had already had 3 hours of sleep and felt wide awake. I wrote my blog until 12:30 a.m. and got caught up on being a day behind. I was glad I was caught up. Writing my blog is really important to me right now. I went back to sleep and woke up again at 4:30 a.m. I got up, got dressed and fed the animals. Then I carried sleeping Angel to the car and drove to town to clean office buildings. Angel woke up fully and was talking away by the time I reached my first job.
Angel played with her toys while I cleaned. I enjoyed myself and happily got the place sparkling clean. We walked across the street to my next job and that also went well. My 3rd job was a big office building. Shortly after I got there and started cleaning, Christopher arrived to help out. He helps me out every other week when I clean the big office building. We worked as a team, which I love doing, and we got the place looking great. As we were finishing up, I left to pick up a dog we were boarding overnight for 2 nights. She is a shy skittish black lab mix named Fletcher and her owners weren’t sure if she would willingly get in my pickup. She jumped right in though and seemed happy to go on a ride. I drove back to the office building where Christopher and Angel were at. Christopher and I discussed whether I should take her with me and keep her in the pickuo while I clean a couple of residential house or if Christopher should take him home with him. We decided to see if she would go with Christopher. She didn’t want to get out of my truck but after some coaxing she got out and we got her in Christopher’s pickup.
I headed to my next cleaning job and it went well. My client and I had good conversations about dog training while I cleaned. She has a dog from Mark McKibben, to person I am going to take Chance to for dog training tomorrow and she highly recommends him. He has helped her a lot with training her dogs. I was grateful for the information.
My last job of the day went great. I had some good conversations with my clients and felt happy and content making their house looking amazing. After finishing up, I headed home. I listened to uplifting music as I drive. Christopher called and said that Fletcher had slipped out of her harness when he took her outside and she ran off. I knew how scared and skittish she was and how much land she had to run off into. This was not good. He said he was going to look for her and I told him I was headed home. When I was almost home, Christopher called again and said he had found her and followed her on the side-by-side but she ran every time he got close then she bolted across the highway and through a field until she was out of sight. This was horrible news. I drove to the field where Christopher was at. Him and Angel were out walking in it calling for Fletcher. I joined them. We called and called and walked and walked but there was no sign of Fletcher. I started sobbing, I didn’t want to call the owners and tell them their dog was lost, I was so sad this had happened. I prayed and prayed that she would be found. After searching and searching, I walked back to the pickup and made the phone call. They said she had ran off before but always came back on her own. I was hoping this would be the case but also knew that she was unfamiliar with the area and had ran really far away. I told them I would keep them posted.
Back at home, I had the owner send me some pictures and posted a lost dog post in local Facebook groups in case she ends up at someone else’s house. I prayed for her safety, I prayed this would end well. I had a board meeting and Christmas dinner to attend for The Kay Theater and the Vision Historic Preservation. I took a bath and got ready to go. I thought about not going and staying to look for Fletcher some more but I knew she would keep running from me and felt it best to wait and see if she comes back. The owners called and said they were coming to look for her. I didn’t like that they had canceled their plans but was relieved they were coming because she wouldn’t keep running from them, like she would me. I went to the board meeting but struggled to stay focused on the meeting. When it was over, I stayed for a short time and ate some salad. I shared with people my experience thinking it would help relieve some of my suffering but I still felt just as bad.
The owners arrived at our house while I was gone and Christopher showed them on a map where she had run off too. I called them to see shortly after to see how the search was going. They were lost in the dark and couldn’t find where Christopher had told them the dog had run off to. I talked them to the location, they went to search and said they would let me know how it went.
Later on in bed, I waited for the owners to call when I realized that my entire body was tense and that I was thinking of worst case scenarios. I fully relaxed my body and imagined a best case scenario where the owners call and tell me that they found Fletcher safe and sound. I envisioned it over and over until I could touch on the joy of how that would feel. My phone rang, I answered it praying for good news. It wasn’t, the owners still couldn’t find her. They asked me to check if anyone has responded on Facebook. I checked and there was nothing but I was grateful to see that a lot of people had shared my post. I knew Fletcher had to show up somewhere and she had her collar on with her tag. I prayed and meditated some more, envisioning the best case scenario and slowly drifted to sleep.
Thank you for reading my blog and being a part of my life. I dearly appreciate you.
Love,
Victoria