The Bean, the World

We lost Mina this morning for a terrifying half hour.

Chris had let the dogs out while I finished snoozing. Chris usually gets up before me, lets the dogs out, then lets them back in before he goes to work. Then I get up to feed the dogs and take them outside one more time before I go to work.

This morning I was starting to fall back asleep after Chris had gotten up, when I heard Chris yelling.

“Mina got out!” he said.

I got up immediately. Time, I had heard recently, was of the essence, and this was particularly true of Mina who was so adorable that she was liable to find a new family within minutes.

I threw on some clothes and ran downstairs.

“Maybe she got in when I didn’t see her,” Chris said.

“I’ll check the beds.”

“I’m taking Paco to look for her!”

“Why are you taking Paco?” I yelled, but Chris had already left with Paco. I can only guess that Chris thought maybe somehow one dog could find another dog by sheer smell or pack attachment.

I quickly checked the beds – no Mina. I put on my sneakers and ran outside to check the yard. Hopelessly, because I knew Mina wouldn’t respond even if she heard me, and especially if she had found something delightfully odiferous, I called, “Mina!”

As I rounded the corner of the house to the driveway, I saw Chris coming back with Paco. While Paco stopped to poop on the lawn (“Hey, I’m out, I got poop…”), Chris called to me.

“The one thing wrong with my plan,” he said, “is that Paco doesn’t want to help look.”

“I’ll check the beds again,” I said, reaching out to take Paco’s leash from Chris.

“I’m going to drive around the neighborhood,” he said.

After I’d taken off Paco’s harness, I checked all the beds once again, even the beds downstairs. The family room was gated away from the dogs and Mina didn’t know how to climb the gate, but given how many times we’ve “lost” the dogs when they were right in the house, I wasn’t taking anything for granted.

I went back outside to call for Mina. I was certain that she wouldn’t have travelled far from the yard, but I was equally certain that she was fully capable of walking for miles if she was in the mood for a lengthy morning constitutional.

I walked up and down the street, despairing thoughts crowding my mind. What if we couldn’t find her? What if she got run over by a car? What if – and this was the worst of all – some other family found her, saw that she had no collar or microchip, thought she was a stray because of how small she was and how fast she would inevitably gobble down the human food they’d have to offer her, and then KEPT HER!?

As I headed back to the house, Chris pulled up in his car. He rolled down his window.

“Anything?”

“Nothing.”

He drove away again, and I started calling again for Mina.

As I yelled, my neighbor came out of the house.

“Did you lose one of the dogs?” she said.

“Yes, Mina got out! The little black one.”

My neighbor said, “I have to go to work, but let me get one of the boys to help you look.”

She called to her youngest, and started backing out of her driveway.

“Oh, Jane,” she said, “Rex is barking next door. I think he’s tied up outside. Maybe Mina went over there?”

I started walking next door, and had gone just far enough to see Rex sitting placidly outside, staring at me, when I suddenly heard a car horn honking.

It sounded close enough to still be my neighbor, so I raced back to the front of her house.

“Jane!” she called. “Mina’s in our yard! She was in the yard behind ours, do you see her? Mina! Mina!”

I started walking toward the back of the yard, calling out Mina’s name. I could just dimly make out a dark, tiny shape, poised in the light between the bushes surrounding the boundary of the two yards.

“Oh, I see her!” I said. “Thank you so much!”

I ran toward Mina, calling her name. Mina saw that I had seen her and obediently ran toward me, pretending she was always this responsive. The jig, she knew, was up.

Mina was wet from the rain, and dirty. I picked her up and called Chris on the cell phone to report her reappearance.

As Chris drove up, I set Mina on the ground and she immediately started running.

“Mina!” I shouted. “Get back here, now!”

I caught up with her and picked her up again.

“You,” I said severely, “are a bad, bad, girl.”

Mina wagged her tail.

Posted by: Supersonic Jane | June 15, 2006 | 8:56 am
Posted in: Dogs