It was New Years Eve, the farmer and I were having some friends over to celebrate another year gone by and so we were both quite busy preparing for it. The farmer had gone out to feed the animals and make sure all were settled in for the night while I was in the house preparing food and doing some last minute tidying up. The farmer had taken the dog with him so that I wouldn't have someone staring at me and drooling all over my freshly mopped floor before our guests arrived.
Fast forward an hour later and the farmer was done in the barn, while I was upstairs getting ready. I heard him come in and go into the washroom to take a shower. When I came downstairs I expected to be greeted by the dog... yet he was no where to be found. No worry I thought, the farmer must have left him outside to run around for a bit. I asked the farmer if he had left the dog outside and to my horror he stated that he thought the dog was inside with me.
You see often times the dog will go out to do chores with the farmer but run back up to the house and be let in, usually because he is hungry and I am preparing food. The farmer said that they had been up in the hay loft, and the dog had gone right by him and bolted outside so the farmer thought that he had come to the house. I instantly went outside, hoping to see the dog, but he wasn't there. I started calling him, hoping that he had just been playing in the yard and would immediately come to the sound of my voice as he usually did. He did not however, and this concerned me.
The farmer got out of the shower at this point and informed me that the dog had likely just run down the road to the senior farmer's house and so he would start his search there. I watched as he left hoping that he was right, it was getting colder and windier outside and the thought of the dog out there made me shiver. I saw the farmer's truck come back down the side road and turn toward the south (the opposite direction of the house). Not good.
I put on my boots and warm clothes and went out side calling the dogs name and listening for any sign of where he might be, but nothing came. the farmer had gone up and down our road at this point and was back home, he went inside and changed into some warmer clothes and headed out into the field flashlight in hand looking for the dog in the deep crick that was in that field. I thought at this point it was hopeless.
Now in the next couple of minutes a few things happened.
First, one of our guests arrived for the party, since we had been searching for the dog I had completely lost track of time and just then remembered that we were having people over and most of them would be arriving any minute.
Next, I heard the dog barking. In all honesty at first when I heard him barking I thought I was going crazy, upset at the fact that we had lost him. But the barking was so close and I knew that I couldn't be going crazy because the farmer had heard it too and began making his way back across the field. I opened the barn and ran up to the hay loft with my flashlight and called the dog. He came running over, tail wagging and then bolted downstairs to greet our visitors.
It seems the farmer had locked the dog upstairs with no way of getting out and the only reason that we found him was because of our visitors. When we had called him earlier he didn't make a sound and yet here he was barking his head off at the arrival of a vehicle he didn't recognize. The dog was eager to get inside as he hadn't eaten yet, and I was relieved to see that he was alive and had not in fact gone all that far.
The rest of the night was spent in good company with lots of laughs and the dog sat near my feet for the better part of the night... unless someone else had food of course. We rang in the new year with my little dinosaur home safe and sound, and all was quiet... for now.
