Yet Another Dog Story

Yet another dog story. . .  I am staying with my parents in Kailua, Hawaii to help them out and to help my brother-in-law settle my sister’s things. 

It was a dark and stormy night. Around 8:30 I texted home that I missed my dogs, Kona and Suzie. We were working on thank you notes to all the people who have sent their condolences for my sister Cynthia.

          Suddenly we heard a strange noise. Someone was trying to break through the gate by the front door. I yelled, “Who’s there?” I saw something white come over the gate and thought that if it was a cat, it must be pretty fat and klutzy to make that much of a racket.

Bruce opened the screen door, bent down, and said, “It’s a puppy.”

        There sat a small bedraggled, muddy and wet white dog. I picked it up and brought it inside. It was scared, and needed to be cleaned up.  I figured out that it was a girl dog and took her out to the laundry sink to give her a bath. Bruce and my mom rounded up some old towels. She was comfortable having a bath. Tons of dirt came off of her.

          She cleaned up well and was adorable. I thought she was a terrier mix, but Bruce thought she was a shih tze. Looking at online photos, Bruce was correct. She was calm sitting on my lap. 

          She explored a little, drank a little water and then laid down on a towel and throw rug that my mom brought out for her. My dad was happy to see her and talked to her. She was a well-mannered little thing, and not a puppy.  She was obviously well loved, probably by a woman because I was her favorite. We decided that in the morning I’d take her to the Humane Society on the other side of the island.

           After Bruce went home, we went to bed. She sat and looked at the door while I read a book, then eventually settled down and went to sleep. Sometime in the middle of the night I woke up because it was raining really hard. I was glad that the little dog wasn’t out in it.

At 6:00 am she woke me up to go outside. I tied a length of light blue ribbon that Bruce had given me around her neck as a makeshift leash and took her out.

 Then I went back to bed. She went back to her rug, until she heard the dogs next door barking. She jumped up on the bed to look out the window.

I couldn’t get back to sleep so I started looking up veterinarians on my phone. There were two close by. One of them opened at 7:00 and the other at 8:00.  After the 7:00 one, Kailua Animal Clinic, opened, I called and asked if they could scan the little cutie to see if she had a chip. They said they could and if they found a chip, they could contact the Humane Society to track her owners down, but they couldn’t hold her there. I was hesitant to take her to the other side of the island because I knew her home had to be nearby.

I put her ribbon leash on and drove right over. They scanned her and she did have a chip! Coincidentally, they were her vet. The receptionist, also named Laura, pulled her chart. The dog’s name is Cappy. She is six years old. They called her owner and told her that we had Cappy. I talked to the lady who was so happy to hear that we had Cappy and she said she’d be right over.

It was a happy reunion. She belonged to two sisters who were about my age. They had gone to an awards ceremony last night and apparently Cappy thought she’d follow them.  She dug through a plastic potted plant that they’d put by their gate to keep her in. They also have a 100-lb. dog who wasn’t as adventurous and stayed home.

When they got home, Cappy was nowhere to be found. They searched the yard, under the house, everywhere. They called the police. They didn’t sleep all night. They woke up this morning and started printing “Missing” fliers. They called their relatives here and on the big island to tell them that Cappy was missing. I told them that Cappy was famous. Even people in Washington had seen her picture, since I’d been texting it home.

I told them that I was amazed that she climbed over a three foot gate to get into our yard. They smiled and explained that they have baby gates up to keep her in rooms and she jumps over them.

When I got back to my parents, I looked at a map to see how far it was from Cappy’s house to my parents’ house. Her short legs had carried her about .7 miles, and across two major thoroughfares. Her owners can’t explain why she headed our way. It’s nowhere near where they walk her. But she navigated it safely for a happy ending to yet another dog story in my life.

Laura Keolanui Stark can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com. She was happy to borrow a dog friend for a night.