Remorseless about being missing

March 9, 2006

Dear Pat,

We were watching the Academy Awards on TV with our friend Robyn when DC decided to take the dogs for a walk. Some minutes later, she burst through the front door with Hank and Lucy and distressedly announced "I need help."

Our beagle Alvie had run out the door before she'd gotten his leash on him. First he'd paused on one of the front porch steps to stretch like a sprinter. When DC tried to grab his tail and missed he was off for Broadway -- the street, not the stage.

To be sure, this was not the first time Alvie had bolted. He slipped his collar a few months ago near the River Campus. DC found him downtown in front of a sandwich shop. Set free on his first visit to the cabin on the Castor River, Alvie was digging for the highway when caught.

When Alvie takes off, the hunter in him takes him chases the wind.

This may be dangerous for a husband to say, but Alvie and DC are a lot alike. That is to say, very independent. I never know when she might slip out of the house or where she might be. She might be laying tile in a building across town or searching a broken down barn for antiques. She might be cruising through Wal-Mart in the middle of the night.

DC never carries her cell phone. Alvie doesn't come when I call him either.

Like Alvie, DC is remorseless about being missing. "I thought you'd figure it out," she says.

I ran out the door shoeless and began crisscrossing streets in the car. DC and Robyn walked down our block.

A few years ago when Alvie slipped out a back door left open by a contractor, he was found blocks away bopping up the sidewalk along Independence Street toward city hall. I checked Independence Street this time but Alvie wasn't there.

The streets were dark and wet. I drove carefully but purposefully, fearful of running over my own dog but afraid someone else would run over him first. His swollen heart and the scars on his body from unknown wars fought before we knew him are only part of the reason we hold him tenderly every day.

A train whistle downtown made me grimace. Trains don't brake for beagles.

Soon Robyn pulled up behind me in her car and yelled. She'd found Alvie on Independence Street after all, on a porch baying at the dogs inside. Back home, we couldn't tell and didn't care if we'd missed anything important on the Academy Awards.

Wednesday Alvie accompanied me to Blanchard School, where our friend Gail teaches. The students petted him and laughed when his baying filled up the room. As he and I prepared to leave, a girl asked if she could walk Alvie to the front door of the school. Her grip on the leash was tight. I made sure.

Alvie is teaching me that independence is just another word for unleashed.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.