Never assume, never take for granted

My hands have finally stopped shaking enough for me to blog about this morning's events. I'm OK now but a piece of me died inside and I will never be the same again.

After the morning coop duties, I set out with the three dogs at about 8:30am for a short walk around the park in our back yard. I didn't think to put their collars on as we were only gone for a few minutes, the big walk was scheduled for later this afternoon - I was sleepy and tired and it was freezing cold in the blustery wind, snow squalls blowing left and right, hard to see anything. Walking in the deepish snow is hard work, specially on no breakfast.

Dante was good as usual, he never lets me out of his sight. Dakotah and Maika, the two akitas, took off in different directions and disappeared in the woods, no matter how much I called them back. They do that often so I wasn't too worried, just pissed off since I had to hang around waiting for them to resurface, panting and smiling.

Waiting... Waiting... Waiting. They usually come back after 10, 15 minutes max. This time: no dogs. 30 minutes. One hour. One and a half hours. Two hours.

You don't want to know what I went through in those agonizing moments.

I went out three times to try and follow their trails in the windswept snow. I yelled, I called, I hollered. I walked and walked and walked and walked some more. Nothing. I called local vets to see if anyone had called in for found dogs (there is no SPCA service in this town). I contemplated the worse: never seeing them again, them being lost, cold, laying hurt in the snow. Kidnapped. My knees buckled and I wailed with grief that I hadn't felt in many, many years. It was all my fault, I had failed them. I couldn't breathe through the sobbing, I couldn't see through the tears.

My world had fallen apart.

Dante stayed by my side the whole time, he wouldn't go to his bed even if I asked him. He leaned against me, slowly wagging his tail and licking my face, covering me with kisses, pushing his head against me. He walked gingerly with me in the woods, sniffing for trails, listening, looking, hoping.

On our last round, trudging through the back field to get home, he picked up a trail and started running. Then barking frantically: I knew he had seen his brother and sister, waiting for us near the front porch.

I collapsed in relief, called them over, covered them in kisses. Swore to them and to myself that I would never, ever let this happen again. They had just lost their freedom and my trust in exchange for their life.

Maika was a bit dirty but nothing major, Dakotah on the other hand was yellow, brown, sticky and smelly, covered in bright red splotches of blood like a dalmatian - they had gone hunting and some poor creature in the woods lost their life because of me. It just breaks my heart.

Of course they were starving and have been sleeping ever since. Lucky. Over two hours of adrenaline will do some serious damage to a person's system and it wrecked my whole day, I can't focus on anything. Dakotah will get a bath this evening as he is filthy and that's about all I can manage.

The irony?

Luna, my new easter egger hen who has been here for about three weeks now, decided that today was the day to grace me with a huge and most exquisite mint green egg:

I hold perfection in my hands :)

So yeah, today has been about extremes... Loss, grief, relief, tears, nightmares and a dream come true. Funny how life works out sometimes. Now I just want to go to bed and start all over again tomorrow, a clean slate. Erase this bullshit.

Am tempted to turn the comments off for this post but some of you would get mad at me for doing that, so maybe you could leave a joke or something to make me laugh? I need to forget.

/end of A Glimpse Into The Abyss post/