LOST MY DOGS--UPDATE

After taking his body home, we returned to the spot where the dogs tried to cross the road. Amy and Jess drove both sides of the road and My son-in-law Josh and I tried to track Morgan. She left the highway after Bayley got hit and ran through a plowed field. There was no blood and her track appeared normal. We circled the field and found her track on the back side. Josh and I leap-frogged the track and followed it to the rear of the stone quarry. It was mainly brome grass with a few scattered patches of snow-very difficult tracking conditions. We would circle and cast ahead when we would lose the track in the grass. I saw a quarry road that lead down to better tracking conditions. I roamed out ahead figuring it would push us ahead by a huge amount. I was about 50 yards ahead of Josh when I saw Morgan sitting stone still beside a tree in the grass. I screamed at Josh to come and he thought I had found the track again ahead of him. Morgan never moved but sat like a stone. That is totally out of character for her. She never moved her head or flinched. The third time I screamed at him, Josh finally made it to my side. I pointed to the tree 40 yards ahead, and said, Tell me what you see and tell me I'm not dreaming. We ran like a couple of school kids to get to Morgan. She back to within 3/4ths of a mile from our house. She too had been hit and was limping severly on her back leg. She never moved a muscle until we were about 6 feet away then her tail gave her away. We got her home and to the vet. There is nothing broken or of lasting harm. Just some cuts and swelling. He said she was very lucky and that she was definitely hit too. If my mid-twenties kids hadn't given up their day off to help me we wouldn't have found Bayley. I would still be in the timber tracking them IF I could. (I'm 55 and I can hardly move after two days of bushwacking). I would not have found Morgan alive today and who knows what I would have found tomorrow IF I found her at all. My kids really came through big time. They all eagerly busted brush and slid up and down snow and ice covered hills. They all three shouted till they were hoarse. They never gave up or never once complaigned. Thanks to them I found both dogs, one to lay to rest and one returned to our home safely. How do you say thanks to them. How do you tell them what their work, concern, and attitudes meant to you? How do you make them know how very proud you are of them? They have been truely awesome. We cried together like babies when we found Bayley beside the road. We also cried together when we found Morgan alive. I certainly could not have done this alone. Without them I would have nothing to report to you. I am truely blessed to have them in my life.
..... ..... ..... .Every man should be so lucky to have a son-in-law and step-daughters like I have!!!

Thanks for indulging me this time on this forum my friends.....just had to share my day with you.

Michael

After I buried our last dog I pretty much gave up on having a dog anymore. The last two we had were with us about ten years each, and when they died it was so hard to let go of them that I decided I didn't want to go through the pain again. Good luck with Morgan and give her a hug for me. Jim

Man I feel bad for your loss. I lost my Annie (black Lab) to a car and the Lucy also a black lab to kidney failure. Keep your spirits up and look for another one, there's literally millions out there waiting for you. I have my "Leggie" (Legacy) now. She's a nitwit with the attention span of a fruit fly, chews everything up but we love her to death.

Before we moved to WV last Summer, our "pound puppy" Boston Terrier got lost. Our guys wear invisible fence type collars but apparently his battery was dead. "Gino" is about 14 years old, blind in one eye don't see real good outta the other one anyway, so he got lost.
I could have accepted finding him being hit in the road. I (and ALL my neighbors!) spent several days climbing through some of the roughest territory I've ever seen in central NC looking for a trace of him. The coyotes are bad there so we were loaded for bear. I was sick thinking that he needed me and I couldn't find him.
Thank God someone saw him wandering up the road probably 15 minutes after he wandered out of the yard and a few days later saw one of my posters! The woman who found him wouldn't give me her name, she wouldn't take money, she was just glad our boy was home!
Guess there's a reason I've always tried to take care of the strays that show up! What goes around, comes around! I'm sorry for your loss but at least you know it was an accident and it wasn't a neighbor.
Slip your puppy an extra "goodie" from me if you think of it.
We even had a stray horse for a while!

Also, keep in mind that the old adage, "all good things must come to an end", will only result in many new things to come!

I'm glad that your female is back home and mostly well, and I'm truly sorry about your terrible loss.

Generally I feel that words of consolation of the "it could have been worse" variety are misguided, even if they are meant well. In this case, though, I think that a partly tragic resolution beats the lack of any resolution that sometimes occurs in lost dog situations. We may never fully get over the loss of a close friend, but death is, at least, inevitable and final. Disappearance, however, is an ongoing nightmare.

Two years ago our dog Pinky, who my wife and I loved more than any dog either of us had ever owned died through someone's carelessness or mistreatment at a vet's office while she was in their care. Very much to my surprise, my wife almost immediately began searching online for dogs resembling Pinky at animal shelters, pounds, and rescue sites in our region. I absolutely didn't know what to make of it. In just a day or two she found a dog at the Tacoma animal shelter that looked something like Pinky in just one picture. Actually she was a larger dog of a slightly different breed, with coloration that was similar but not the same, and a totally different personality. We adopted her. It was sort of a miracle how much it helped us get throught the sadness we felt to have the activities and problems of integrating a new dog into the household (four other dogs, two humans.) Of course, she never became Pinky as I suspect my wife secretly hoped that she would, but it didn't matter---the good was already done.

Saving an animal's life by bringing it home to replace one that's just died may not be right for everybody. What I have to say about it is that it would never have entered my mind to do that, but it turned out that it couldn't have been more right.

All the best, Stan