Cletus Was Missing For An Hour

Yesterday around 12:15pm, and 11° outside, I had the fear unlike any other I have experienced hit me. It was my fault that Cletus had escaped. I will have to explain the latest AT&T story later but it was because of that story I was going outside in freezing weather so I could move their box with the spliced wires out from the fallen tree branches and tree on the berm. The fallen tree on the berm was from the ice/snow storm a couple of weeks ago.

I thought I had all the clothes I needed to stay warm in 11° weather with a chill factor around 0°. But I didn't and that led to the problem for my mistake. 

Garage door is open. I walked back inside to get my ski gloves to replace the ones I was wearing due to my hands freezing within minutes.

As I walked into the mudroom from the garage, I closed the door behind me, evidently it did not close all the way for whatever reason. I am on the other side of the house, getting those gloves from a closet and notice the electrical power cord is pulled out of my router and is laying on the floor.

Watson likes to sleep under my desk sometimes so the wire must have gotten tangled in his foot and was pulled out when he got up from under the desk. Like any hound or dog, if he felt any resistance or that cord on his foot ... he would have ran to break free, thus pulling out the electrical cord. 

I plug the cord back in the router, grab my gloves and head back outside the way I came, through the kitchen. Just as I get to the middle of the kitchen I see a wide open door in the mudroom that leads to the garage and one of the garage doors are open. Instant panic and adrenaline overwhelmed me. 

There isn't a dog or hound anywhere inside the house or lingering in the garage. I run outside the garage scanning yards in both directions for any running, sniffing hounds or dogs. At first I see no dogs, then across the street, in the carport of the house to the left ... I see three of them. I look both ways for any traffic and scream "milk bone" and all three came sprinting to the house.

Walter - Henry - Watson

No Ava or Cletus anywhere and I am in a state of panic trying not to think of the worst thing and coming up with a plan to search. I follow the three back into the house, close the mudroom door and make sure it's closed all the way this time. I push the button to close the garage door, grabbed my gloves and started walking the neighborhood. I was calling Ava's name but never saw either of them.

After walking the whole street that I live on, I go back to the house and check the backyard even though there was no way they would be in back since the patio door was closed. No, they were out somewhere near this neighborhood. It was 11° and by this time they had been outside around 30 minutes. 

I grab my phone, my billfold and car keys and decide to drive through the local streets. I can see some backyards, some wooded areas as I drive slowly ... but no Ava or Cletus.

I drove the three main streets hoping I would see them running along the road or hopefully see them on front porches of houses on those streets. It was strange because Ava has never run away like this and the times I have been with her on walks she has never shown signs of leaving yard. But if Walter left today then she could too, because he never leaves the yard when I am outside with him.

I go back inside -- AVA's in the kitchen!!! She must have been in her crate during the times I had come back inside. So she had been inside the house the whole time.

So where is Cletus?

I go to my computer then to a Facebooks page called Evansville Lost Pets 2.0 I am not sure if you can see their posts if you have not joined the group, but here is what I found .... it was great!!!  Plus the photo of him had been posted just 36 minutes before I saw it while I was out driving around looking for him.

I was so excited I could barely type a comment to her post. I posted my phone number telling her to call me and that he was my bloodhound. Then to get to her personal Facebook page I had to search her name because this group will not link your personal page (thats a good thing). I find her page and as I am typing a private message to her my phone rings.

Melissa lived just up the street. Where my street stops at the intersection where I can go only left or right ... she lived across the street at that intersection in the house to the right. She said he was howling to come into her house but she has two cats, so she put him in the garage to get warm, still 11°at the time and didn't want him to get hit by a car.

She had fed him food, gave him some water. She said he was really friendly and funny as she got to know him.

I told her I was on my way and lived only a minute away from her. That intersection is where we turn around on our dog/hound walks. The cross street is not real busy but is one of the main streets traveled by those going to town. 

We walk in the garage and I see him standing on the steps with his face at the door ... he is wanting inside.

I said "Cletus what are you doing?" and as he turned to face me, he came running. I slipped that leash that works like a collar too, over his neck and we headed outside to the car. While thanking her again for taking care of him and posting she had him, he didn't stop walking to the car and hopped up in the back because I had left the back cargo door open after I pulled in.

So that is the second time in almost four years living here, where I had a "senior moment", leaving the garage door open and not paying attention to the door that goes into the house. The last time Walter, Henry and Watson had ran two houses away and was playing with the neighbors dog. 

Yesterday was different though. I couldn't see him on my drives so I was pretty sure someone had let him in their house. He is microchipped though and the information on that chip had been updated with my name, phone number and address when I picked him up last November. 

He was a happy boy when we pulled in the garage. I closed the door with the remote in my car and didn't open his door until that garage door was completely closed. All four met him in the mudroom, surrounding him with Watson baying and Ava barking. They liked that he was home too.

I went to the computer room to update the missing dog ad that he had been returned to his owner but Melissa had already done that. Sitting in my desk chair, Cletus walked in and moved his nose and head up inside my arm to be petted. He doesn't do it much, but he groaned a little, put his paw up on my leg and tried chewing my ear. 

A sign that he was happy to be back home.

I cannot describe how happy I was then and now that it all worked out. Thanks for that Facebook Page for lost pets. Many dogs and cats have been found from postings on that page.

The last cold day today here in "the tropics" of Southern Indiana.