But the real story starts when we find Galena, and White Fang finally dies; after a very good life, we had to have her put down. But we'd kept one of her puppies, Keiki, to be her companion (we'd had WF have one litter because people wanted her puppies, then had her fixed and kept one puppy, who we immediately had fixed as soon as old enough).
A bit after WF died, hubby and i were walking home from a Friday evening, and the gate that used to be self-latching ... well, didn't.
Within a few minutes Keiki was gone. We literally spent the entire night combing the neighborhood. I live in a very small town in a tri state area, so had to call the various authorities in three states. But my little town got on the ball. Even so, they tracked her from here to there a beyond, but in fact she was hard of hearing, and did not answer to her name (there's a story behind that). She'd always lived with her mommy (I do mean her real mom) and followed her everywhere. A considerable number of people I never knew called the police, who called me. Someone spotted her at the cemetary. I went out and searched. The thing is, I know she will not answer when called.
When we'd given up .. there had been torrential rains, and she isn't the brightest box of rocks, we just assumed after 3 or 4 days (actually, that was being hopeful), she as gone. We'd driving after every lead we'd had, and she'd have to have crossed a pretty busy highway, and, well, probably she had to be gone. The thing that most bothered me was that I knew her to be a true coward, and I hated the thought that she'd die in the wild, scared. This is a dog that was afraid of garden statuary.
So we went home after spending days looking for her and mourning her loss, when I got a weird call (I think this has to be a small town thing). She heard that i'd lost a dog, her sister said her sister's boyfirend's son found a dog that looked like her.
Went out and found a skeletan that was definitely my dog.
I called my vet and she came in (it was a Sunday, we live in a small town, so there was no emergency facility).
I'd already admitted she was dead, if you could see what she did wandering away, you'd agree.
WE got her home, and made sure our gates were more secure.
But this wimpy, 14 lb dog (when she was fat and happy; maybe 8 when we found her) managed to live 8 days out, and when she came back had hack marks on her back that the vet thought might be from preditory birds.
She became a rather minor celbrity pet in town, people got to know her story. Eight days? And the distance involved? She didn't give up until she couldn't move at all. Where in the hades did she think she was going?
We picked our little skeleten up, both of us bawling like infants. She was delerious and starved
We had her treated and babied her home, had the gates fixed and paid more attention to our safety measures. But eight days? How did she do it? We tracked her path through a large cemetary, across a highway, somehow around or through a rock quarry, and on to a farm.
So, eight days later we, both bawling our eyes out, took her home, an a few years later, we laid her to rest (yes, both crying). In that week when I lost her, I didn't so much fear for her life, i just did NOT want her to die afraid. And I know because of decisions we've made, she was not afraid when she died. When she started to have seizures, Jer called me, and we wrapped her up and did what we had to do. She died as comfortable a death as we could give her.
Barbara
