Lost Wingman

Back in September I'd posted about "Canine Flight", the protectors of  "El Rancho Juvat", ball catchers and skunk chaser's extraordinaire!

Corky and Mrs Juvat enjoying a quiet moment.

Well, New Years day, we had an "incident".  Canine 2, callsign "Corky", was outside with her Flight Lead, Canine 1, callsign "Cooper" and Mrs Juvat.  Cooper was perfecting her leaping tennis ball catch with a full 360⁰ spin.  Corky was wandering about the front yard sniffing whatever suited her sniffing pleasure. 

3 horses, innumerable deer, raccoons, skunks, hogs, and other varmints leave a vast array of interesting scents to sniff.  Thank Goodness, they are not discernable, for the most part, to human olfactory senses.  

Did somebody mention "playing Ball?" 

In any case, Cooper's practice session was over, so Mrs Juvat issued the recall code word.  Cooper brought her practice ball, but Corky was not to be found.  Mrs Juvat contacted RAPCON and requested a radar sweep of the Operations Area.  

Why do scrambles always happen when I'm enjoying a nap?

Canine 3, call sign "Oscar" and I scrambled in "My Truck" . 

Got nuttin on the scope, Juvat!

(Canine 4, call sign "Annie", didn't respond to the call for scramble)

The only scramble I want is EGGS!

Meanwhile, my Sister (who also lives on the property) scrambled her 3 ship.  

We affectionately refer to them as Blonde Flight.  2 Yellow Labs and a Golden Retriever.  I'm not sure they had any training in this type of mission, but they were enthusiastic in their running all over the property barking at everything.  However, for all the barking, they found nothing. 

Unfortunately, nor did Oscar and I.  

Now, Corky is 16 calendar years old, nearly deaf, has hip problems as well as vision issues.  Not sure if there's such a thing as Canine Alzheimers, but.....

We searched until dark.  

No Joy!

Left the front porch gate open and the light's on, even slept with a window open so if she barked, we'd hear her.

No Joy!

Went out the next day and did it again.  However, this time we also kept an eye in the sky for circling birds.

Mrs. Juvat printed out some flyers and dropped them off at our (3) neighbors houses as well as the Vet offices.  Went to drop one off at the City pound, but it was closed for the holiday.

Still no joy.

Tuesday, we haven't seen or heard anything.  The only circling birds were circling over two deer carcasses that (poor shot) hunters hadn't found, but managed to make it onto our property before expiring.  Mrs Juvat is distraught.

By Wednesday, we figured, she'd decided it was time to go, so wandered off to find somewhere peaceful and...

But, Mrs Juvat, in true "Never give up, Never Surrender" fashion, goes by the pound and drops off a flyer in the office.  The pound is a single person operation and as such is low budget which means you'd better pick up your pet expeditiously.  The animal control officer is out on a call or whatever.  Mrs Juvat leaves a flyer on his desk

I'm at work that afternoon and get a call on my cell from a local but unknown number.  Normally, I don't answer those.  "Yo no hablo español", tends to be my response to the caller as they start some rapid fire gibberish about "Juan".  

In any case, for whatever reason (divine intervention?), I answer the phone. 

"This is Juvat"

"Hello, Juvat, I think I've got your dog."

"Great! Who is this?"

"Joe (or something) at the Animal Control office, it looks like the one on the flyer somebody dropped off"

"How long are you going to be there?"

"About 15 more minutes."

"I'll be there in 5!"

A new landspeed record was set by a 2016 Ford F150 pickup answering to the name of "My Truck".

I meet Joe, he takes me into the kennel where  I positively ID our missing wingman.  She looked a little worse for wear after her incarceration, but was happy to see me.

Then promptly demonstrated that joy by peeing on the front of my shirt when I picked her up.

El Rancho Juvat at the Top.  RV park at the bottom.

Turns out she had wandered about a mile and made her way into an RV park.  Found an occupied RV and barked.  The owner opened the door and saw her, then closed the door back up.  Corky kept up the barking (I can attest to her persistence and the tenor of the barking in order to get her way), after a while, he opened up the door and let her in. 

Tuesday, he took her to the pound.  The story is when he was told the policy for unclaimed animals, he broke down in tears, but couldn't afford to keep care of her himself.  In the flyers, we had offered a reward, but he'd never seen one of the flyers.  When I rescued Corky at the pound, the Animal Control Officer gave us his number.  Mrs Juvat gave him a call to let him know we'd gotten her back and to arrange to give him the reward.  Just a good ol' boy.  He's happy, we're happy!

Canine flight is back together.  All the controllers have been retrained on requirements to keep track of all flight members.

Life is good.

And that's a happy ending!