It was last Friday night getting around 9:30, and it was time to take our old dog out. It takes us, Lory and I, longer to get ready than Agatha, the old dog. So I opened the front door and let Agatha mosey down the walk while I went into the garage looking for a flashlight and Lory rummaged through the hall closet looking for Agatha's doggie jacket; yes, it was cold this night.

Then, she was gone. Agatha, I mean. I ran up and down the driveway, looked up and down the street, ran through the house, crashed through our bushes. “Agatha,” I shouted. “Where is she?” I shouted again. Still no flashlight, and I gave Lory a penlight from my desk. We went from “Where is that damn dog?” to “Christ, the goddam dog is missing and where is that effing flashlight?”

By 4:30AM we were cold, saddened, and discouraged. We had walked and drove around the inner and out circles of our subdivision several times. We went down the asphalt trail by Rock Creek and took all the muddy side trips, down those slippery trails that ended in piles of trash and in one case an old cracked toilet.

We walked the length of Rock Creek Blvd back and forth several times all the way to Powerline Park. Sometimes we would walk with her that far. but she never went all the way to the park on her own. In fact the farthest she's ever gone on her own is like down our driveway, turn left and the 50 feet or so to the corner, and that was rare. I'd say in the 15+ years we've had her, something like 99.99% of the time, she's sniffed around our front yard bushes or waited impatiently at the foot of our driveway.

Past tense. Nostalgia. She was a good old dog. That was our mood during that last trudge home.

We slept a couple of hours and then walked some more. The animal shelter opened at 11AM and we were right there, reporting a lost dog. We left and then came back because we had put Washington Country for her license and then remembered that we had transferred her to Clatsop because in these, her autumn days, she spends most of her time at our beach house.. There was a woman there who looked at us strangely as if we knew her and had forgotten.

We called the Clatsop pound and yes (wow!) someone had reported finding her. On Route 26, near North Plains around 10PM. There was no way she could get there that fast; someone had to have taken and dropped her. The lady at Clatsop said well, they could be mistaken about where Agatha was found. She then put us in touch with a guy in Rock Creek, and he said he found her around Kiwanda, a few blocks from our house.

And so we drove to his place immediately; he was around Powerline Park. He was waiting outside with another guy, and Agatha was on a brand new leash. She looked good, alert and happy to see us. I put her in our backseat. I asked if we could give him a reward. He said yes, but that's not why he did this; it was cold, Agatha was a dog in trouble, and he was glad to help.

So Agatha is back. We just got back from a walk along Chapman Beach. There was a slight rain. Agatha was wearing her jacket, and I had my hood up. The wind and rain stir up the sand and stings your face.

I was thinking about walking Agatha back in Rock Creek the day after her ordeal. She likes to turn left at the end of the driveway and go down Rock Creek Blvd toward Kiwanda because I think there are more dogs and more smells down that way. But this night she very purposely turned right into the subdivision. Smart dog.