Hey there!

It’s sure been a crazy week or so. But I want to start from the beginning……..(grab some popcorn cuz it’s a looooong story!).

Kimi was kind enough to agree to watch our 6 month old chihuahua, Biggie, while we went on our family vacation to Myrtle Beach this year. I will admit, I was nervous. But only because of how attached he is to us, not for any other reason. I was worried he would cry a lot or poop on her floors out of anxiety. I had no idea I needed to worry that he would escape!

In any case, we were already packed and 2 hours into our drive down to the beach:

When I got the call that Biggie had gotten out and couldn’t be caught. A friend of Kimi’s had opened their front door without knowing about him and left it open a little too long. Just long enough for the pup to run right out.

Kimi called me in a panic. She said she had seen him running between the same 7 houses or so but he wouldn’t sit still long enough to pick up. This is a problem we have with Biggie. He won’t go to others. He doesn’t like to be approached and picked up – he has to come to you. It still happens with me when he wants to stay outside!

And that sucker is FAST. Ridiculously fast. And he’s got the endurance of an ironman (irondog?)!

Anyways, after the call we decided to pull off the freeway and grab dinner to see what happened. We didn’t want to keep driving in case we had to turn around. And when I received the text “I don’t know what to do” I knew we had to go back. There was no question.

But here was the dilemma. See the extra kid in the car? Well, that’s my friend’s boy and he was coming with us because her and her boyfriend have 5 kids between the 2 of them and this way they could drive together instead of having to take 2 cars (2 cars = 2 times the gas!). So instead they had to drive separately AND they took C with them, too (sorry, and thank you!!!!!!).

J and I got to Kimi’s house around 9:00 Friday night. It was already dark. We spent another 2 hours searching but no one had seen him since about 7:00 and it was late. J and I both slept (well, kinda slept) at Kimi’s house that night so that we could get up bright and early and start looking again. And once the library opened we printed off 100 flyers and handed them out to every business, home, and local we passed.

But there was still no sign of Biggie. Talk about feeling defeated. I didn’t know what to do. C was in Myrtle Beach but I couldn’t see leaving in case Biggie was found. J finally made the decision for me. He said “one of us has to be with C and one of us has to stay here for Biggie”. So I caught an early flight down to the beach Sunday morning while J stayed back. He even went back out to Vermilion after he dropped me at the airport and covered over 30 miles on his bike looking for the little guy. There was nothing else we could do. We were just hoping and praying someone would call and tell us they had him.

And that phone call came a few hours later. I was walking from the pool up to my room and luckily had my phone on me. This is how the phone conversation went:

• Kimi (excited and out of breath): Heather, he’s here! He’s here!
• Heather (wide eyed and in disbelief): Where? He’s IN your house???!
• Kimi: Yes!! I heard barking and he was at our back door!
• Heather hangs up on Kimi and calls J.

When I called her back to get the details she said that she literally just opened the slider door and he ran in. Unbelievable. Like nothing had just happened. Like he hadn’t been gone for 3 days and 2 nights by himself in the fields and country of Vermilion. Un-freakin-believable.

There wasn’t a scratch on him. He was pretty damn skinny, which you can tell in this picture:

But other than that he was completely fine. Ridiculous. We’ve since been saying that he’s the badass dog from the streets. Don’t mess with him. (Allison, him and Harv could start their own gang!)

Monday morning J called a doggy daycare in the area and once he was confident Biggie would be fine there he packed up the car and left for the beach. He got there around 11:30 Monday night.

It’s no wonder this happened at 10:00 the next morning:

It’s not lemonade in those red cups, friends. Hehe.

More on our vacation adventures tomorrow. There were some interesting nights:

But for now I’m off to spend more quality time with Biggie. He’s been on my lap pretty much all day. I missed this face:

Thank you again to everyone. It was really a stressful time for us and every time a tweet, Facebook comment, text, or email came through it really helped us stay positive in such a horrible situation.

Hug your pets tonight, guys.