15 seconds of pure panic!

[Guest mrskti]

Morning, ritual....get my babies from their crates, dori bites ellie in butt, we go outside via the back door....do they're thing, walk around the yard and re-enter in the front of the house. I stop to play on computer for a few minutes, the girls take off to look for chewies in bedroom.

I'm giving myself 20 minutes this a.m., cause i have a schedule to keep today, so we get up to go in and take showers, and john says.....the dogs are in the back yard!!!!! I freak, and sprint to the back door...WIDE OPEN...Run out with visions of Fergus in my head, see them both and do my best baby talk, pat my legs and hope they want to chase me......bingo! They both run like crazy to me (thank you Jesus!) and we're all safe and sound in the house......and I have my heart attack!!!! The stupid door didnt' latch when i bumped it closed.....man am I gonna fix that!!!!

It was the scariest 15 seconds i've had in a long time. Thank god john saw them out the window. We have about 80 acres of woods behind the house and lots of fields around us....that could have been bad......

I need a nap now!

[kayharley]

OMG....My heart was racing as I was reading your post. I am so relieved your Cairns came right back to you. I hope they got major treats after you got your heart beating again.

I've had a similar experience a while back and luckily, like you, there was no catastrophe. It's amazing all the horrible thoughts that rush through your head in a matter of seconds!

We have a gate on our fence that is notorious for not locking when closed. I now have a secondary "defense" on it that has to be manually slid in or out to open/close the gate. Everyone thinks I'm neurotic about my dogs escaping but I know first hand just how clever and quick they can be.

So glad this has a happy outcome.

[AllAboutPetey]

Oh my gosh...last Friday morning I opened the kitchen door into the garage while the door was still closing so Petey could go out and meet dad, thinking he would greet him and run back inside with him. Nope! He was darting out the closing garage door. Fortunately, we were able to quickly stop the door, call Petey, and he came back in. Whew!.....Later that day....DH opens the same door not realizing Belle is under his feet and out she ran. She's fast, and she darted right across the street to the neighbor's yard and barked her head off at him. Then, with Greg chasing her, she ran down the middle of the street for a few houses. Finally, Greg turned around and said "let's go", and she did follow him. By that time, I had leashed Petey and we were waiting in the driveway with a hot dog. When she ran by, I called her name, and when she saw Petey and I she ran towards us and towards the treat. I know it probably happens to everybody at some point, but I felt like a terrible Cairn mommy! We were so lucky that a car wasn't coming when she bolted out the door. These little dogs are too fast! An hour later I was still shaking and upset....

[Guest girliejr]

I have had to chase Jack down the block before (with a box of treats in hand!) and it is such a scary feeling! Thank goodness your hubby saw them out there before they took off on a journey in the woods!

[Guest girliejr]

I have had to chase Jack down the block before (with a box of treats in hand!) and it is such a scary feeling! Thank goodness your hubby saw them out there before they took off on a journey in the woods!

[Teri9672]

OMG, glad the furkids are safe.

Once wehn Tabitha was a pup we had some friends living with us. I came home one day and couldn't find Tabitha. I just knew someone had let her out and didn't notice. I ran up and down the streets crying in a panic. I just knew she had been out for hours and I'd never find her.

I went back into the house and sat down on the bed to cry somemore and what do you know..................Tabitha came crawling out from under the bed. She was all warm and toasty and had been sound asleep the entire time.

It does make your heart stop when you think that something has happened to them.

[Scully'sMom]

I have turned into such a lunatic when it comes to fear of Scully getting loose. There have been too many instances where she scooted out the door because my mom wasn't paying good enough attention. I feel safe now with the yard because it's good and secure with the fence and gate but I'm still scared of her getting out the front door. I never open it without holding onto her collar.

I'm so worried about the UPS man (with whom my neighbors must think I'm having an affair with) opening up the screen door to put a box in and have her get out. I've even thought of making a sign for the screen door window.

I'm so glad all these stories had happy endings!

[Anna_525]

What a relief! I'm glad they didn't run away!

All in all, we've had three run-away experiences, the longest being 2 hours. Each one felt like a heart attack. Nowadays, when I notice that the house is quiet and Alfie and my husband are not around, I bolt out the door to see where they are....luckily it hasn't happened again....

[Marmielin]

When our first cairn, Oliver, was 15 years old, deaf & blind we moved from Memphis to Akron. While the packers were loading the truck, Oliver snuck out of the house. I looked everywhere for him, and had visions of having to move without him (don't know if we could of) . We lived on a golf course and I walked across the street behind the houses on that side and spoke to a golfer, and an hour or so later the golfer came to my house with our Oliver. Was I ever relieved. The golfer said he also had a deaf and blind dog. Tink has only gotten out once in the 10 months she has lived with us and that was when I was putting the Christmas wreath on the door. We had only had her a few weeks, and I hadn't even thought about her being so quick and didn't know she was gone, but thought she was with my dh. When we realized she was missing and started looking for her, she was still right by the front door and came immediately when we called. She was only 3 months old, and I'm surprised she was so quick to mind. Now that she is a year, I think she would just ignore me !

Lindab

[Brody'sMom]

Mia is a major escape artist, we have woods behind our house and she is facinated with them. Unknown to us, a groundhog had made a Mia size escape hole under the fence and she availed herself of it. We realized she was gone in short order and spent a frantic 20 seconds calling her. She showed herself right away, but teased us for about 5 minutes before she would come to us. We are in the process of staking the fence to the ground to make it more secure.

[Eliz222]

Oh my, I'm glad your DH was there to see them!!!!!!!!! I know that pure panic that shoots through your veins...glad you had a happy ending!

[toomanypaws]

I am so glad you have your pups safe inside. Our oldest, Kiara has gotten away from us 3 times now, the worst being in the mountains of N.C. We're headed back to the cabin in Oct. and dh has informed me that she does not get to go this time. It's almost like she knows and wants to prove herself. Today she was running our yard, which is quite large. I called to her and walked a good 100 ft towards her and she came to me and walked by my side ALL the way to the back door. She got praised big time for this, but she's still not going to N.C.

[Guest mrskti]

Wow, plenty of panic stories here!!! Glad we all survived them. I just took them out for a potty break and they saw a rabbit right away, boy am i glad that wasn't this a.m., cause they sure wanted at it!! Wish someone would have had a camera to get a shot of them both standing on their hind legs wanting loose!!! We're sitting on the porch now, all blocked off of course! We have a 40x8' porch and Dori can get through the rails, so we got some white plastic fencing and it keeps them in, works out great and doesnt' look too horrible!!! Like who would see it all the way out in these boonies anyway!

BTW, tomorrow is our first training session, i'm so excited.... But then a week from thursday is spay day...boohoo.

[Brody'sMom]

At least for me, part of the reason I feel so terrible about Fergus is because I know it is but for the grace of God it is not Mia. We all do our best, but sometimes these furkids are determined!