We adopted Ellie on Wednesday night. We had a vacation already planned to Bennington, so we decided to take her with us. We had to downgrade our hotel room, but it was totally worth it for her. We drove out to Bennington (2 hours) on Friday afternoon. Toby and I LOVE vacations. We had a great time in the car on the way out there and settled into our hotel just fine.
On Saturday, we went to the Obelisk which is a monument for the Battle at Bennington. It was some anniversary weekend, so people were dressed in Revolutionary outfits and they set off a cannon to start a 5K. We brought Ellie with us, and she had a great time seeing so many new people. The canon was her (and my) least favorite part. We left her in the car for about 15 minutes while we went up the Obelisk. She was just fine when we came back to her. We were so proud of her being a good dog while we were gone.
We went back to the hotel and crashed for a while just spending time together and watching tv. We also played some Bocci Ball. Life was great. It was time for lunch, so Toby and I thought we'd leave Ellie alone for about 2 hours while we head to the brewery we were so excited to go to. We checked on her on our way out through the window, and she was great. We had an awesome time at the brewery and brought great leftovers back for later. We were living on cloud 9, so excited to come back to our dog. When we got there, she wasn't there.
At first we thought maybe she was making too much noise, so the hotel staff brought her to the office. We went to check with them, and they had no idea what happened to her. They said they saw a dog with a blue collar come into the office at 1:30 but then the dog walked right back out, like she knew her owners were waiting for her. We left at 1:15, so she had escaped 15 minutes after we left. She was never seen again.
We went back to our room frantic. It turns out she broke the screen and climbed out the window that was open a small amount. We got her leash and some treats and hit the road. We drove up and down so many streets, calling her name and asking everyone we saw if they had seen her. Toby dropped me back at the hotel, I called the police and animal control to let them know what was happening. My parents went to our house to check our messages because her tag had our home number on it. We don't have cell phones so they forwarded our calls to their cell. Toby would stop in every half hour to check in, then he would go back out searching. We finally tried going to sleep and had a sleepless night.
At 5:00 am (after 15 hours), we woke up to loud banging on the door. We both jumped out of bed and ran to the door, expecting to see Ellie. There were two police officers there who relayed the sad message that Ellie had been hit by a car. She was on a highway with a 50 mph speed limit, only 1.5 miles away from the hotel. It makes us so sad to think she was so close and so lost, just looking for us. We couldn't go back to sleep or enjoy vacation after that, so we left.
We came home and called my parents to let them know what happened. To say we were devastated doesn't even begin to explain our feelings. Our hearts were broken and our home was empty. We just felt so terrible that we rescued this sweet girl and she was in our care for less than 3 days before she died. We tried to sleep but couldn't. And when we could, we had bad dreams.
I finally called Elaine from New England Lab Rescure, the wonderful woman we adopted Ellie from. I felt we had to tell her what had happened. I couldn't explain without crying what happened and how terrible we felt. She felt terrible, too, and told me she would find us another dog. We were so amazed to hear that from her. She sent out a mass e-mail to all of her connections looking for another great, black lab.
She found another lab for us named Scout. I'll explain all about him in another post, because this one is for Ellie. Knowing we were getting another dog was the direction we needed to pull through this terrible experience. It was a motivating factor, a light at the end of the tunnel, to help us through. Ellie was such a wonderful, sweet dog. There will always be a place in our hearts held just for her. She was our first dog we had together as a couple, and the first thing that made us as a couple into a small family. It saddens us to think or talk about her, but we know she is now getting all of the care, love, and attention she'll ever need. She doesn't have any reason to run away any more.
Sweet, sweet Ellie Girl <3
No comments:
Post a Comment