Rachel Worrall

Posts Tagged ‘Disneyworld’

On Wednesday night I was proved wrong. I have never believed in the maxim, ‘the comfort of strangers’ yet I lost a dog that didn’t belong to me and strangers helped me find her. To me, strangers dent my car doors, don’t shovel their sidewalks of snow, never hand in wallets or phones or cameras or Sony noise-cancelling headphones (a sore point). Not even books. On Wednesday night they helped me find a dog.

Mike and his family had gone off for a week in Disneyworld and they had left Forfuxa, (furfooosha) in our care. She’s a gorgeous blenheim coloured Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. A dog who could have been a show dog, she puts our two ragamuffins to shame. They are also Cavaliers, but both were runts and no one wanted them because they didn’t think they would survive and so weren’t worth paying a price for. One of them, the younger, Viola, (17mths) is also a blenheim, and looks like a mini-Foosh. The elder, Olivia (19mths) is a tri-colour.

Foosh had visited before, the last time for two weeks and she had a wonderful time playing with our two dogs, as they had a great time playing with her. It was like one long happy play-date. It’s really life-affirming to watch them play ‘kill the green monster’ or ‘kill the snake’ together. Last Wednesday it was a beautiful day, which I spent inside working. My husband was away on business so the dogs didn’t get their morning walk. So, I promised them I’d take them up to The Fells in the evening.

We hared up there before the major rush hour traffic and were up the hill walking to our usual ‘cliff’ spot by 5.15pm. The dogs were off their leashes (very naughty of me) and were playing chase together quite happily when all three of them disappeared at once underneath some pine trees. When they reappeared moments later I could see only my two. I couldn’t see Foosh. I started calling her name and went under the pine trees myself and down the side of the (small) hill where she had disappeared. No sign. I went back along the path and scoured the hill, shouting. No sign. I went back to the car with my dogs in tow, no sign. Then I started walking the paths of The Fells, asking people out biking and walking and running if they had ‘seen a dog that looked like this one, only bigger’. No one had but people took my name and number and also Foosh’s name, and as I set off again down the path I could hear them behind me, calling her name. I went back to the car again, no sign. Then I went back to the paths. Eventually, about half an hour before dark, I went back to the car, got in it and drove as much of the perimeter of The Fells as I could, looking for her. No sign.

By this point and for the first real time that evening I felt helpless. I had no idea what to do. Our dog when I was growing up, Candy, used to disappear about once a year, and she always turned up – brought back by neighbours or handed in to the police, so I oddly had only a small fear that I wouldn’t find Foosh again. The helplessness was in not knowing where else to look.The only thing I knew was that I wasn’t going home that night until I had found her. I circled back to the car park and parked again in the layby by Bellevue Pond, from where we had started out. I sat staring at the back of the car in front of me, trying to think what to do next. I stood to get out of the car, ready to go off again and look, and as I did so a man walked past with a little golden terrier. I asked him if he had seen Foosh and he paused and said, ‘I think I saw a dog like that in the car just up ahead.’ Some women who were having a smoke turned round from beneath the trees near the pond and asked ‘Are you the woman who’s lost the dog?’ I nodded. ‘They’ve found her.’ They had to lead me to the car, because in my confusion I kept going to the wrong one. And there she was, in a black Hyundai: I could see her through the window, there was Foosh.