Sarah, Nancy and Val....my dog-loving friends.... you've stopped reading, right? No, seriously, STOP reading right now!
Yesterday, I picked Maddie up from preschool at 1pm. I rushed home because I was meeting someone at the house to give me a price estimate at 1:15pm. I pulled into the driveway and she was waiting for me. As I let this person into my home, the dog got out and I let him just hang outside for a few minutes to do his business and not bother me and our guest. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Fast forward 20 minutes and I am ushering guest out of the house and I get completely wrapped up in the nap process for 2 tired little girls. Finally get them in bed, finally get myself some lunch and settle into doing some housework and blogging before the little ones wake up.
Afternoon goes along normally and nothing seems amiss until dinnertime, when I am feeding my 11 month old peaches and she dumps half a bowl on the floor. Feeling lazy, I decide to call the dog to come clean up the peaches for me. Ben? Oh, Ben? Ben, where are you? OH NO! BEN!!!! I LEFT BEN OUTSIDE FOR THE LAST 5 HOURS!!!!!!
I go outside and start screaming for him to no avail. I knew that by this point he wouldn't be in hearing distance. I also knew that he does not have our phone number on his collar. So, I pack the kiddies into the car and start on a mission to find our poor puppy dog. By some miracle, I got only half way down our street when I see a man walking Ben on a leash. I pull up (looking so stylish with my mismatched baggy sweatpants and peach-stained tshirt!) and tell him that Ben was our dog. Were it not for my 3 year old in the back seat shouting "Ben I am so happy to see you!", I'm not sure this guy would've turned the dog over to me. Apparently, Ben had made it a few streets over when he ended up at this man's house and he took GREAT care of our dog all afternoon. He decided to take Ben for a walk through the neighborhood in the hopes that we'd be out looking for him. And, thankfully we were at that time!
Ben... I am sorry buddy. This whole memory thing.. yeah, well, I am working on it! Can't make any promises, pal, but I'm hoping I'll never leave you outside by yourself again :-) As my husband said "It happens to the best of us" which made me feel better, even though he followed it up with "although 5 hours IS kinda a long time"!
4 comments:
I have to admit.. I have done this. I felt terrible but I know Duke had the best day ever. He roamed the cul-de-sac and hung out with the neighbors... like what Ben did.
He is home safe and sound, don't beat yourself up. I am sure he had a good day.
Sorry...it' like a bad car accident, you don't want to look but you have to!
Poor, poor Ben. You want to come live at our house? We will never forget about you like that mean Mommy of yours.
hahahaha
No really, I have forgotten Chili outside numerous times. Just the other day he was half a block away because I let him out front and forgot to tell Dave he was out there with him!
Chippy(my cat) got outside once, and was out all night long in the middle of hard down pours! We all have done it. I am sure Ben has forgiven you.
So happy you found him. I remember when our Elmo got out for a couple of hours - I was so distraught!
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