A Most Eventful Day

well...i can't say my life is boring.
Today was quite a day.

The day started off well. I was up before my alarm went off, snug in the sheets listening to the sounds of the morning. Ate my cereal while listening to NPR Morning Edition. It was chilly so I made a cup of cocoa to take with me on Frisco's morning walk. Had a great walk, saw a bunny run across the road and some really cool spider webs.
Got back to the house, took a shower, got my books and stuff ready and headed off to school about 7:30am. (I've got "clinic week" this week...my team is responsible for the care of all the resident cats and dogs on campus...we clean the runs, walk, feed, play, etc...they'll be up for adoption!!!! hint hint hint)
So, got to school and all is well. I was especially looking forward to today because by afternoon class was to be a field trip to a horse farm, followed by a 45 min. trail ride. Awesome!
Well, I got there and fed the dogs...another team member arrived and we cleaned up all the kitties and fed them then headed back to the puppies to start walking them. Took the big boy "Bruno" out to the play pen to run around, then walked him around campus. (We're encouraged to do this so that the dogs can get some people socialization...and the affection nevers hurts)
SOOOOO....
all is going well, until I get back to the kennel. I put Bruno back in his run and my other team mate took the next dog for a walk while I stayed and cleaned her run. (we switch back and forth---there are 5 dogs) So, I finish cleaning her run and my team member wasn't back yet so I decided to get a jump on the next one by moving the dog to an empty run so I could clean.
Well, I didn't follow procedure by the letter and the dog got out of her run without a leash on. This would have been the end of the story had the door to outside not been unlocked...and not just unlocked, but LOCKED OPEN...you know those push bar doors that usually click shut and have no handle on the outside but can be "locked" OPEN...confusing, i know...
anyway....
Ginger (the dog) ran towards the door and threw her body weight against it...normally it wouldn't have budged...but since it wasn't latched the door flew open and Ginger escaped into the wide world that is the rear of campus. She hauled ass into the woods and disappeared. I ran to get my team mate to help me look...but no luck. I was going to have to gather more people..that meant telling more people how badly I screwed up. yuck. So I ran into the Vet Tech building and notified some folks and soon the rear woods and parking lot were full of technicians and students looking for little Ginger the hound/beagle...the FAST little thing.

Needless to say, I was beside myself.

I kept composure but was internally raging at myself for being so stupid.
What mattered was finding the dog, though.

......imagine about a 1/2 hour pause where you don't know what's going on and the dog hasn't turned up.....

here's a bad reference map... the squiggly black line is gingers flight path... it goes off the map.

(Yes, thats I-81 Interstate right on the fence line of BRCC property...nothing like visions of 18-wheelers flying by to let the imagination run wild when a dog's on the loose)


Then I saw my team member walking towards me smiling...I was worried.

She said..."They've found her!...she was way back behind the barn in the field..they're chasing her down now." I've not felt so relieved in a long time. I hugged everyone around me.
Aside from some nasty side-glances from the staff technicians, I was okay...rattled, yes...and emotionally drained for the day...but got a lot of supportive remarks from my fellow classmates.
"Everybody screws up once"......"At least you know it won't happen again"..."Don't worry, a dog escaped on our first day of clinic too"..."It's okay, she was found, that's what matters"...
and the best came from one of the staff technicians.
"Well, chasing a dog all over campus is rough, yes...but imagine chasing two cats, this was a few years ago...we caught one, the other was hit and killed on I-81."

True.
No one was killed.
That's always a good thing.

And that was all BEFORE 9:30am!

I'm pooped.
I'll recall the second half of may day later....it's no less exciting!