Sam got lost today. He was out in the woods with my wife, being as lovely as he usually is with coming back to check in when he's called or loses sight of her for too long, and then he just... doesn't.
Long story short, we spent 2.5-3 hours looking for him, walking the trail and the surrounding area, checking nearby fields, and eventually driving around asking people if they'd seen him, calling all the way. And me four days out of surgery (why I wasn't on the walk to begin with). Finally get a call from the landlord that he's shown up in the yard, and he's been able to pop Sam back in our apartment (Sam knows and adores our landlord, which helps).
He's fine. Turned up totally naked, which makes us think his tracking line or harness got caught up on something in the woods, and by the time he got loose he wasn't able to figure out where my wife had gone. Had himself quite an adventure - apparently he visited the store down the street looking for us, rolled in at least one godawful thing, brought home a tick or two, and found himself some lovely human excrement somewhere to eat. Don't ask how we know.
I'm not convinced it's a recall issue, just because he's never done anything like this before, and usually has a great natural orbit. I really think he got stuck and turned around or something. But regardless, we're stopping off-leash walks for a bit until we can brush up his recall more, and he's getting a GPS tracker for Christmas. And maybe we'll try to teach him some actual tracking skills. He's pretty rubbish when we play hide and seek deliberately, let alone when he actually needs to find us in an emergency situation.
We're all safe and uninjured. I'm sore. Sam has spent the last few hours passed out, unsurprisingly. But yikes, dog.
Long story short, we spent 2.5-3 hours looking for him, walking the trail and the surrounding area, checking nearby fields, and eventually driving around asking people if they'd seen him, calling all the way. And me four days out of surgery (why I wasn't on the walk to begin with). Finally get a call from the landlord that he's shown up in the yard, and he's been able to pop Sam back in our apartment (Sam knows and adores our landlord, which helps).
He's fine. Turned up totally naked, which makes us think his tracking line or harness got caught up on something in the woods, and by the time he got loose he wasn't able to figure out where my wife had gone. Had himself quite an adventure - apparently he visited the store down the street looking for us, rolled in at least one godawful thing, brought home a tick or two, and found himself some lovely human excrement somewhere to eat. Don't ask how we know.
I'm not convinced it's a recall issue, just because he's never done anything like this before, and usually has a great natural orbit. I really think he got stuck and turned around or something. But regardless, we're stopping off-leash walks for a bit until we can brush up his recall more, and he's getting a GPS tracker for Christmas. And maybe we'll try to teach him some actual tracking skills. He's pretty rubbish when we play hide and seek deliberately, let alone when he actually needs to find us in an emergency situation.
We're all safe and uninjured. I'm sore. Sam has spent the last few hours passed out, unsurprisingly. But yikes, dog.