The Saturday Chronical...Morning

I have recovered enough now from Saturdays events to talk about the day. The tale of Isabelle (the dog on the right and the larger half of double trouble) began Friday evening. Coming home from work we were greeted only by Stella's jumping around and yelping which was unusual as she is normally the one who wanders off by herself. When Isabelle was still among the missing later that evening worry set in. Wanda and I had a restless night and Stella sat by the door whimpering for her missing sister.

Only once before had the dogs been missing all night and that time they were both AWOL. We found them in the morning up at Doe Run cavorting in the parking lot. It was a weekend hen there a lot of people up here and we suspect they had been partying all night. It was our thought that was the situation this time however to Isabel to party without her sister didn't make sense as Stella is the party animal.

The nice thing is that everyone up here knows the girls and as we drove around Saturday morning looking for the missing dog the word soon spread she was among the missing. The work from several was the last time she was seen was in the vicinity of the villas up at Doe Run. After several hours of searching we concentrated on that area. It was drive, stop, whistle...drive, stop, whistle until suddenly there was a panicked barking and yelping. We heard her very close but couldn't see her.

Exiting the car what could be seen at the edge of the road was the tail and a rather large beagle butt protruding from the opening of a large but not large enough drain pipe. Poor puppy had crawled in and could not back out. After I dug away some of the accumulated dirt at the entrance she extricated herself and all I could see as I looked into the drain was darkness. Muddy and relieved to be liberated from the cramped quarters where she had apparently spent the night she gave little yelps of joy all the way to the house. After a stop in the rhododendrons for some much needed relief there was a joyful reunion with her sister who seemed as relieved as we to have her home.

And that was Saturday morning. More on the rest of the day later. Oh, yes, there's more.