Man, last week had a couple of crazy and emotional days!
So in the early hours of Tuesday, September 11th, 2007, Bongo, our old Beagle woke me up to go outside. I took him downstairs, disarmed the alarm and let him out. Then I poured myself some water and dilly-dallied around to wait for him to come back to the door. After about five minutes, I realized it was taking him an awful long time!
So I look out and don’t see him anywhere. After pausing another minute or two, I slide open the glass door and walk out there to see which corner of the yard he’s in, shrouded in darkness. After a few steps though out into the backyard, I realize that the damn side door of the fence is open and the Beagle’s gone, possibly with a 5 minute head start.
So I run upstairs to get shoes on, wake up Amanda and grab a flash light. We both rush outside and walk around the cul-de-sac, but there’s no Bongo. After a few minutes, we jumped in the car and drove around, shining the headlights and flashlight all around the neighborhood in hopes that the Beagle would show, or come to Amanda and my calls. After about an hour to an hour and a half, we gave up. Bongo is microchipped, so I called the microchip company to alert them that he was missing. I begrudgingly returned to bed, but didn’t sleep well. As soon as the sun began to rise, we spent another half hour driving around, looking for the Beagle. We talked to a couple of morning walkers who saw something, but it was a fair distance from our house, and out of the neighborhood. We drove around there, but no sign of Bongo. Amanda put a bowl of food out front and out back and left the gates open in case he came back on his own.
So we headed to work, and I called every vet for miles, putting in lost dog alerts. The real hope was someone would find him, take him to a vet, and they would scan him and call us that he’d be found. I even forwarded our home phone so that all incoming calls would be sent right to my cell phone. So all morning, distracted, I waited for my cell phone to ring. Meanwhile, at Amanda’s office, she made lost dog signs, and went home for an early lunch to post signs, and man did she ever. She put up a dozen or more signs all around with Bongo’s cute pictures, our contact information and a little reward.
So she comes back and notices the gate on the side of the yard is now closed. She all of a sudden sees Bongo, passed out, pushed up against the side of the house, not moving at all. She called out to him running over to him, but no response. She initially thought the guy was dead. I can’t imagine finding him like that. She said he then started whining a bunch and tried to stand up, but fell over. At this point, Amanda is totally freaked out and calls me hysterical! I couldn’t understand a word that she was saying. I really thought she had found him like on the side of the road, hit by a car or something.
She wanted me to call someone, but I told her to get him to the vet and I’d meet her there. She agreed. I hung up and zoomed out of work. In the meantime, Amanda had gotten our next-door neighbor to come over and together, the two got Bongo inside and assessed the damage. She gave him a whole bowl of water, and the pooch slurped it down. After, calming down Amanda realized Bongo wasn’t in as bad shape as initially thought, though he was definitely out of it.
I ended up meeting Amanda at home and Bongo looked so pitiful. He was lying on his side on the couch. An initial glance at him, made you think he had muddy paws. Though they were dirty, he was covered in these little bugs — thousands of nymph ticks crawling all over him. Bongo whined as I approached him, his attempt to greet me. He was very weak and immediately, you could see he was exhausted.
We rushed him off to the vet and they took him right in. They had him walk around and the vet saw how he was having trouble planting his foot. The vet determined he had nerve damage to the chest that was making it difficult to use that front foot properly. They then took X-rays of him and thankfully he had no broken bones, nor any internal bleeding. The vet thought Bongo got hit by a car, ran into something, or possibly got stuck somewhere. I don’t think the little guy got hit. Had he got hit, I think he wouldn’t be alive. He’s only 30 pounds! We think he got into the areas still under construction in our neighborhood, or got his foot stuck in one of the storm drains. Anyway, the vet then gave him a bath in a chemical to kill off the ticks (and Amanda also bathed him again later that evening). We were warned that the nerve damage was tricky. He could end up limping the rest of his life. He could end up fully recovering, or he could end up totally recovering.
He was prescribed a steroid pill to help with the inflammation in his chest and to help possibly with his labored walking. We paid our bill and then took him home, and the guy was so exhausted. Bongo slept a ton, even for him. He definitely was traumatized, whining and whimpering as he slept. We had to carry him up and down the stairs and he was hesitant to get out of bed those first two days. The picture above was during dinner. A typical position for Bongo during dinner is right at my feet, but those first days, he was hardly interested. Even when we fed him (a big bowl of white rice), he laid there with the bowl held up to him. The guy was total wiped!
But little by little, his energy returned and Bongo we knew and loved started to return. He walked around more and I believe on the third or fourth day, after I got home, he got tired of waiting for me to go downstairs, and took the stairs himself.
Fast forward 10 days later to today. Bongo’s got a couple days left on his steroids and is walking fine. He’s going up and down the stairs fine. The only place he hasn’t totally become the Beagle of ‘ol is going outside to the backyard — he goes to the bathroom quickly, close to the house and scurries back in. He also has not gotten *as* excited at dinner time, nor when the doorbell rings, which we’re not complaining about.
We are absolutely thankful that Bongo returned late on the morning of September and that he’s made close to a full recovery. It was very emotional for both Amanda and I, and we’re so appreciative to have our Beagle back in one piece. We’d love to know where he went in the ~ 12 hours he was missing. How far did he go? What did he get into? We’ll never know, but again, we’re just happy to have our hound back.
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