Sunday night, the fourth of September in 2016 wasn't like every other Sunday night. Kaytee and I had some company due to the unfortunate accident Tim had with the tractor. Tim was in the hospital and had been for over a week. Jake, Jordyn, their dog Blade, and Tracey were all staying at our house since it's in Marshfield and the closest residence to Tim. Bo was acting a little strangely. He was staying away from people and the other two dogs (Roxie and Blade). Him and Blade didn't have the best relationship. Blade can (unknowingly?) get aggressive and he's 10 or 20 pounds heavier than Bo. Roxie handles him just fine. 9PM rolled around and I let Bo out to do his business as per usual. I stayed outside with him and started calling his name after a minute or so. He didn't come back. I walked farther out into the dark yard and called some more. Nothing. After 5 or so minutes of calling, I came back into the house. Bo had been known to take off like this. He just needs to stretch his legs, pee on anything vertical, and try to smell some rabbit scents. I wasn't worried and figured he'd probably be back within a couple hours.

After a couple hours of periodically checking the patio, it was time for bed and it didn't seem like he was going to be back soon. Well this had also happened before. I set out a large dog carrier with a blanket inside for him to come back to when it was time. After waking up the following morning, I immediately checked and Bo still wasn't back. Well thiis is when the first twinge of worry set in. He hadn't been gone this long before. This was Labor day, so none of us had to work. I didn't think it was worth driving around since the corn was like 9ft tall this time of year, and I thought Bo could run in the fields around the house for several days without being heard or seen. We finally took a little drive later that afternoon to just check the roads and ditches in case anything really unfortunate happened. I had my doubts about Bo getting hit by a car as he had previously made it 8 or so hours running through the middle of residential Marshfield without getting into trouble. He also gets some road smarts from running around at the parents' farm chasing rabbits. The only conceivable way I can see Bo getting hit by a car is if the activity that gave him the most joy, chasing rabbits, blinded him to oncoming traffic as he crossed the road on a hot trail.

Tuesday morning I woke up for work and immediately checked the dog carrier again. No luck. I called the Wood County and Marathon County Sheriff's office and humane societies. They were now on alert, and would let me know if he gets taken in by a good Samaritan. All of Tuesday went by extremely slowly. As that evening came upon us, Bo had now been gone 48 hours. That's a long time without his normal food, water, and bed! At this time spirits were pretty low. Kaytee and I thought there's a good chance we wouldn't ever see Bo again. I had a bad night of sleep Monday night and Tuesday night as my mind wouldn't stop thinking about Bo. That night it rained and stormed. I can't imagine what Bo's plan was throughout the night if he was still out there, alive.

For the third morning in a row, I checked the carrier and for the third morning in a row it was empty. Wednesday was another very long day of work just like the day before. I was waiting for my phone to start buzzing because someone carted a small beagle with Bo's description to the local humane society, but no call like that came. When I got home, I finally posted to Facebook, revealing our distressing and personal issue to all of my 'friends'. Here is the actual post:

The 'WE FOUND HIM' text was obviously added later.

People immediately started sharing it, and every time someone local to Marshfield shared it, my hope went up a little more. 35 minutes after the original post, my phone vibrated with a call from an unknown number. The lady on the other end said she might have my dog! She said her sister in law (who lives in Onalaska) called her after seeing the post which was shared by a coworker and neighbor. This lady on the phone had a stray beagle show up at her house that morning and after relaying a few describing bits about Bo, she confirmed it was him! She lived near the High School in Spencer, which was 9.76 miles away as the crow flies according to Google Maps! Ironically she lived only several city blocks away from where Bo and I had lived 3 years previous. Maybe something about the area was familiar to him...

We drove to pick up Bo with our moods and spirits immensely brighter than they had been over the last 3 days. Kaytee and I hadn't been this excited in a while. We also brought Roxie along. When we picked him up at Kwik Trip in Spencer, it seemed all he wanted to do was sleep. He didn't look much thinner or hurt in any way other than a minor limp, which was probably just from covering so much ground the last few days. He ate plenty of food, drank a lot of water and slept some more. I like to believe that he was happy to be home. He was certainly doing his excited whine every time I'd hold him or pet him. Now it's been over a week since we got him back. He hasn't come close to running off and is listening very well when we let him out. Maybe it did scare him a bit to be on his own for almost 3 days in the wild.

So now we're thanking the Lord for answering prayers, the power of Facebook for getting the word out there, and stand up humans who help find and return dogs to their homes. Hopefully Bo sticks around another 10 years or more now!

by Ethan