New Year's Eve

Since this was our first opportunity in a long time to spend New Year’s Eve with my family, we decided to take the plunge and invite everyone over for the Dudley’s Holiday Bash with Warren Seacrest and Jacob Clark. We planned on lots of food and use the Xbox 360 Kinect for entertainment.

You’ll need some quick background information to help with the story so here’s the Reader’s Digest version (if this were Star Wars, I would call it a prequel but like Star Wars, the later episodes come first). About 2 weeks ago, my parents went to the local Humane Society and brought home a dog (at least that’s what they say it is). They got a short-haired Chihuahua (you ever hear of a long-haired Chihuahua? There is such a thing but when I think of these dogs like many others I think “Yo Quero Taco Bell”.) that is about 14 months old and looks like a small deer. The people at the HS said it was 5 years old and weighed 9 pounds….it’s actually closer to 14 months old and weighs about the same as a small bag of Doritos (Taco Flavored just to keep the theme working). My parents have gone through multiple dogs (just to be clear, the dogs died of old age…we are not Korean…but they were delicious) and after the death of Missy, it appeared that my parents were going to be “dog free”. However, things changed and it was decided that it was time to get another dog. It was a surprise but at least it wasn’t a poodle, I HATE those curly little rats! (It all started when I was five and I went to my grandparent’s house….sorry, I’ve missed my last several sessions with the shrink.). Jacob and Warren accompanied my parents to the Humane Society to pick up the dog and bring it home. It seemed like a very docile animal with none of that small dog “yip-yip” barking. However, the dog also seemed a little skittish (again, we’re not Korean and on that note, do you think Kim Jong Il is in hell right now with dogs chewing on his fat ass? Just a thought.). Anyhow, that’s the background, on to the story.

So, my sister is the first to arrive to help us setup the buffet table. We’ve got ham, spring rolls, samosas, veggies & dip, chicken fingers, buffalo chicken dip, chips, soft drinks, etc. Plenty of food for everyone…in the neighborhood. I was outside slaving over the deep fryer to get the spring rolls & samosas cooked so they would be fresh for the party, the spring rolls are always better when they are hot out of the fryer. At about 6:15 or so, around the corner comes my mom with the little dog in tow. It was sniffing around just like any other dog but became a little spooked when it saw Tammy and I standing there looking at it. Lilly (that’s the dog’s name) continued to check out the yard at the end of the leash but it would look back often to see what we were doing (pay no attention to the people by the deep fryer….and if you were wondering, yes she would easily fit into the fryer). I went over to take the leash from my mom so she could go inside the house since it was starting to get dark and cold outside. When the dog realized that the person connected to the leash was not my mom, it freaked out. It started to pull away from me and squirm. She had on a harness but somehow the dog was managing to free itself from the harness. I realized that the dog was escaping and tried to pull it in and move closer to grab it when it squirmed free. I almost had her but then she was out of the harness and on the loose. I asked my mom to come get the dog when it bolted for the neighboring town houses that were across the four empty lots by the house (the subdivision we are in is still “under construction”)`. I went inside to grab a flashlight and headed back out in the direction I last saw the dog. Warren headed out with me and everyone began to pour out of the house to find Lilly. I saw it in the distance heading behind a house and told Warren to run down the street and cut across the last house to see if he could cut off the escape route (it’s a classic pincer movement Patton used so I figured it would work on a little dog as well). So we’re all running around trying to find this small dog that could run pretty darned fast when she wanted to. We’ve got the cars out with headlights beaming into fields around the house hoping to see where she might have gone. The neighbors are coming outside their houses and we tell them we’re looking for a lost dog. [Editor’s note: Deep down, most people are pretty good about things like this. If you are just running through their yards, you get shot but if you tell them that you’ve lost your dog…they cut you a lot of slack and let you do whatever you need to do. One of my neighbors gave me one of those “deer spotter” spotlights to help find the dog. I gave it back because I wasn’t trying to prevent a ship from crashing against the rocks or send a beacon into space, I was just trying to find a small dog and it was overkill. Still, it was extremely nice for someone we didn’t know to allow us to use their stuff, even for a short time.]
We spent about 30 minutes running around, checking behind houses, walking through the thorn bushes and trying to avoid the electric fence that separates us from the cows when we finally made the tough decision to call off the search for a little while. With all the noise and a skittish dog, we were just as likely to chase her away as lure her closer so perhaps it was better to hunker down. We compared notes and essentially, no one had any idea where the dog went (I heard rustling this way, there are dogs barking over there…). I thought the dog had headed out to the cow pastures behind the house and was probably long gone (as long as she didn’t touch the electric fence). There was little we could do except to hope that someone found her and when they took her to the vet, the microchip that was implanted in the dog would tell them who she belonged to. Of course, New Year’s Eve was a pretty chilly evening and as you know, a Chihuahua isn’t exactly a small version of a Siberian Husky. We went inside and ate the moderately warm food (it was ready on time but the excitement of the dog’s departure pushed dinnertime back a little and tried to figure out what to do next.

We talked about the dog and what we could do but since the dog didn’t really approach anyone except my mom, it seemed destined to be a story with a not so happy ending (unless you like frozen dog, on a stick!). Mom went back out with my nephew and headed up the street in search of the dog. I went upstairs to look out the back window from the second floor to see what I could see around the house. From the other side of the house (the opposite direction where she took off running), around the neighbor’s fence comes this small animal just at the very corner of our lot and barely in the illumination of the floodlight. I thought I was seeing things but it was the dog, Lilly. She was moving just like a deer, the ears were perked up and she was looking all around and moving very cautiously. Then, BAM! She took off again back in the direction from which she had come. I ran downstairs (away in an instant, I flew like a flash, tore open the shutters and threw up the sash…) and told everyone I had just seen her but she took off. It turns out that Warren was just stepping out on the back deck when he saw the dog and off it went. We called my nephew and told him to come back to the house (with my mom). So, there was some glimmer of hope as the dog made its way back to the house but the problem was still, how could we catch it since it never came close to anyone and it was so fast.

For the rest of the night, the kids tried to make it fun but there was the hanging cloud of “what would happen to the dog” lingering over our heads. My mom moved the chair next to the back door and was staring into the back yard hoping the dog would come back. We put some ham on a plate and moved her bed outside just to see what would happen. Every once in a while my mom would go outside and call the dog’s name. My dad and I went outside and did our best stealth moves to watch for the dog and see if we could catch her. We were about 15 feet apart, I was by the house and he was in the lot next to the house where we had seen her go back and forth before. I carried a piece of ham to try and lure the dog to me. We could see her, just outside of the lighted area and she would walk slowly up the divide between the lots and then, she would stop and look directly at my father and turn around and go back. We would move slowly towards each other hoping to close the trap when she was within reach. One time, she came within 4-5 feet of my dad and they just kind of stared at each other when she turned again and took off. We turned on the car and had my Mom call for the dog but she would not walk between us. It was looking like she was going to make life difficult on us since she was like a mirage. She was there and then, she was gone again. We went back inside and I continued to watch for the dog out of the window but I didn’t see the dog for a while and figured that the dog was determined to spend the night outside.

At around 10:30, my mom went back outside by herself and went to the edge of the field and called the dog. She carried a piece of ham to help. By this time, the dog had to be very cold and probably tired from all of the running around. I watched from the bedroom as the dog appeared and slowly moved towards her. She would inch closer and my mom didn’t move except to hold out the piece of ham. It was a slow process as the dog would lean forward to get a sniff or try to take a bite of the ham and my mom would pull it closer to her. The tension built as this continued for several minutes and the dog came closer and closer. Finally, the dog was close enough and my mom reached down and grabbed the dog and brought it inside to everyone’s relief. The dog was very cold and my mom wrapped it in a blanket to warm it up. I have to believe that Lilly was as happy to get caught as my mom was relieved to have the dog back. Like I said, it had only been two weeks but it doesn’t take that long for a dog to become part of the family.

It was a good thing because I don’t believe the dog would have survived the night outside. In my mind, I already knew I couldn’t tell my mom that we peeled the dog’s body from the grass in the morning. I was already planning the “little white lies” to keep the legend of Lilly alive.

Mom: Did you find the dog yet?
Me: No, but I have seen her around the neighborhood and the food I put out is gone so I think she is eating. The neighbors have seen her as well and think it will just be a matter of time before she’ll be caught.
Mom: Okay, you let me know when you’ve found her.
Me: No problem, don’t worry I am sure she’ll come around eventually. [Hang up the phone] Now kids, you don’t tell your grandmother that we buried the dog next to the electric fence this morning. If she asks, you tell her you almost caught the dog. Warren, you tell her you tripped over your big feet and Jacob, you tell her that you were playing the Xbox Live and heard your brother tell the story that he almost caught the dog. Don’t worry, we’ll only have to tell this story until she either stops asking or they get another dog (after all, it’s not a lie if you believe it right? But deep down I knew that one of them would crack under cross-examination so I had to prepare the next lie to cover for the first lie. No, I didn’t bury the Lilly, it was a small deer.).

So it didn’t take us waiting up until midnight to have the excitement of the ball drop. For us, it was the dog pickup that made News Year’s Eve worth celebrating