So, Serena decided to give us all a collective heart attack yesterday.
It started when we had a tradesman come to the house to fix a bubble in the flooring. Jenny knew he was coming, but Tracey's day started with an issue at the vet clinic (even though she was on a day off), so there was never a chance to give her a heads up about the guy coming to fix the floor at 11:00am.
Skip forward to 11:00 and there's knock at the door. Now, we have a protocol when someone comes to the house. especially tradespeople, which is, we put the dogs in the dog room or the yard (depending on where they are working). We also have an "airlock" system between the front door and the living room. Basically, we don't open the safety gate to the living areas, until we are sure the front door is secure.
This is necessary because we live on a major highway with cars rushing past at all hours. One adventurous Chihuahua trying to cross the road and we'd have a disaster on our hands.
Anyway... due to the accidental lack of communication, when the Tradie arrived the dogs were still running free around the house. Dace let him in (Tracey was still enjoying her day off in her PJ's LOL), but instead of waiting in the hall until they'd had a chance to secure the dogs, this guy just let himself in through the gate. Of course, the dogs all rushed into the hall, because they are not normally allowed in there, so it was imperative they make the most of this rare opportunity.
The trouble is, the laundry also leads off that hall (weird, I know - the house on the block backwards, which simply adds to its charm). So having no luck with the front door, our curious pack of Chihuahuas all decided to check out the laundry. Tracey and Dace rounded them all up (so they thought) and put them out in the back yard.
At this point, the early morning crisis at the clinic came to a head and Tracey was called into work, so she went off to get changed. The Tradie fixed the floor and let himself in and out a couple of times. We assume, at this point, that Sneaky Serena had stayed hidden in the laundry waiting for an opportunity to investigate what was on the other side of that door, and slipped out when the Tradie was getting tools out of his van. Dace was working from home, so he'd gone back into his office, Tracey headed off for work and Jenny didn't get home until after 6:00pm, followed by Tracey who didn't manage to escape the clinic until almost 8:00pm
Given that normally, the dogs all have their favourite beds to snooze on, or are playing in the yard, we didn't notice her absence. It wasn't until we called them all in for dinner (which nobody in this house ever misses) that we realised Serena was missing.
Cue the collective heart attacks.
We quickly realised what must have happened, but turned the house upside down in case she'd been caught in a cupboard or a nook somwhere. We scoured every millimetre of the yard by torchlight, and then headed out to the highway to confirm our worst fears.
One thing to note is we are not in suburbia. Our house is surrounded by open farmland, so there are no fences to hold a curious dog back. We searched as far as we could in the dark for about an hour and then came home and decided we needed to put social media work. We posted notices about our missing girl that, astonishingly, were shared over 200 times
Nobody slept much overnight. First thing Saturday we were ringing all the vet clinics to see if she'd been brought in and making flyers to distribute to the neighbours. She is chipped and registered with our local council, so if they had her, they would have contacted us immediately, as would the Chihuahua Rescue of she'd been handed into to them. We were quietly trying to comes to terms with the fact that she was probably gone forever, when we got a call from Desiree at Glenstar Kennels, offering the services of one of her Lagotto Romagnolos, who was trained as a truffle scenting dog, to see if he could pick up her scent.
This was a brilliant idea. Within a few minutes, we had Desiree and Ziggy on the job. We gave him Serena's bed to get her scent and off he went.
The farm next to us has a water race that runs along the fence line, which was empty, being summer, and clearly, mud-loving Serena had headed down that way. Ziggy crossed the race into a couple of neighbours paddocks, then back again, always headed east until the trail seemed to grow cold across the road from the local primary school. A yard full of kids would have been a grand temptation for our friendly Serena, so we searched the school yard as well, to no avail.
Tracey brought Scotty along, because he's Serena's best mate and we thought that maybe hearing him bark, would tempt her out if she was hiding somewhere, if our calling her and the "pup-pup-pup" recall we teach all our dogs, didn't work. Meanwheile Jenny drove up and down the highway and the side roads dropping flyers into mail boxes.
At 10:30, Desiree had another appointment, so she headed home with Ziggy, and we headed back to our place. We agreed to reconvene in a couple of hours and expand the search radius even further.
And this is where the story gets interesting. We arrived home, distraught and convinced Serena was stuck in a water race somewhere, maybe injured by a car or dead from trying to cross the highway.
We opened the front door - the first part of the airlock - closed it, and turned to open the gate into the living area. All the dogs ware gathered, waiting to greet us. INCLUDING SERENA!!!!!!!
She was inside the house! Not just inside, but behind the airlock, and utterly bewildered by the fuss we were making at the sight of her.
Tracey scooped her up and checked her for injuries, but other than some mud on her back legs, she was absolutely fine.
Of course, then we had to check the yard again to figure out how the hell she got back inside. No sign of a break in the fence that we could see, but somehow, she managed to get home and back into the yard. We filled in what might have been a small hole, but there was nothing obvious.
There is a GPS tracker and a collar in that dog's future, let me tell you, so if she has found a sneaky way back into the yard, then that means she's found one out of it, too.
Further proof of the fact that she wasn't in the building is this photo of Ava. They get along fine when we are at shows, but at home, Serena has usurped Nikita and Ava for the position of Alpha Dog. She holds court from the pink throne and Ava hides in Nana's bedroom rather than challenge her.
This was Ava this morning before Serena came home, LOL.
So we are all recovering now. Serena is not allowed out of Tracey's sight, but as that involves endless cuddles, she seems fine with that.
Serena has in no way been traumatised by her big adventure. Can't say the same for the rest of us.
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