Laura has been Missing Over 100 Hours!!!

We returned Saturday afternoon from driving all the gravel roads in and around the farm, looking for Lara.  It is too wet to take anything but a tractor on the hunting roads or timber roads on the farm.

We've driven so many miles looking for Lara since she disappeared earlier this week.

Lara is one of the rescued Puppy Mill Westies that came to live with us September 2, 2007. 

As we pulled back into the parking area in front of the house, I saw little white fuzzy faces hopping up and down behind the screen at the front door. They were so happy to see Unc and me return.

Instinctively, I counted tails as I walked in the house.  One. Two. Three. Four. Five. S....  No number six. No Laura. The pain swelled over me afresh and leaked out of my eyes.

Lord, I am trusting YOU to take care of little Laura and hopefully bring her back home.

Was it Tuesday or Wednesday of this week that Mackie and Laura apparently slipped out the door under the feet of someone who was focused on something else, who did not see little white dogs bursting out into the adventure of the green playground? Someone who would not automatically remember that little white dogs cannot be left outside of a fence without supervision. 

To keep the lines of communication with God open with the goal of Him bringing Laura back to us, I have had to quickly forgive the one who unknowingly let two of my babies run away. If any anger starts to gurgle deep inside me over this, I have to stop and choose to forgive...and go back to trusting God to turn this excruciating drama into something good.

Gordon and I know the escape was absolutely an accident, a factor of age, and not because that person did not care about these little rescued Westies.  These little dogs are deeply loved by all four humans on this farm.

I can hardly remember the first 30 horrible hours that crawled by after we discovered two missing fur babies. Unc and Gordon covered the whole farm in separate vehicles. They stopped at the neighbors, the nearest one half a mile away.  We called everyone for whom we have caught and returned a dog over the previous decades. Those would be people who would be a bit more motivate to look for two little white terriers running free.

Thirty hours after we first missed Mackie and Laura, the big English Shepherds started barking in the long hall of the farmhouse. Unc looked out the front door to see if someone had driven up, and one little white streak of fur zoomed through his feet and into the safety of the house.

Mackie had come home.

Gordon brought him down to the studio to me, and we hugged him together, while I sobbed in relief, and Mackie licked away my flowing tears.  I was praying and thanking God the whole time we checked Mackie and picked off ticks and doctored the bite marks and scratches.

Lara would surely be close behind Mackie.  We checked outside and called throughout the night. No Lara. No one of our farm friends or neighbors have seen any little white dog.

It is now Saturday evening.  Twice this week, we have heard barking in the distance, but when we reach those dogs, they have been either strays or in the case this afternoon, a trio of "coon dogs" that had strayed onto our farm.

It has been 100 hours since we discovered Laura missing.

I honestly do not see how parents of human children survive when a child goes missing. 

Maybe I project onto these little dogs the relationship I would have with a child of our own. Gordon and I know we will be facing the last decades of our lives without the infusion of life that children and grandchildren provide.

Maybe the 45 year old hormones that are playing hide-and-seek inside me are causing me to "lose it"...not be able to contain or control my emotions. Insomnia, a physical ache like the flu, cluster headaches, migraine and stress combined.

Images of Laura injured, Lara with a rope around her neck, Lara bitten by a snake, Laura run over, Laura in pain from ___________ just fill in the blank, and I have pictured it. 

Mackie had been in a fight with some creature with teeth. His wide collar blocked one tooth, but there was a deep puncture from the other tooth about the area of his carotid artery.

Thankfully, we had not given Mackie a shaved-back Westie cut this spring, so his very thick hair protected him for the rest of the bites that obviously gave the attacker a mouth full of hair and limited contact with Mackie's skin.

I've been praying almost constantly for God to bring Laura back home. During the tears and prayers, God has been leading me to pray instead, "I trust you, Lord, to take care of Lara".

In my Baptist/Presbyterian upbringing, I believe God created Lara. Lara and everything else I claim as my own really belongs to God. God brought Laura and the other rescued Westies into our lives to tremendously bless us. So it is God's prerogative to move Lara to another place.

For reasons I cannot understand, God allowed the circumstances that let Laura and Mackie to escape.
God brought Mackie back home. Now God is allowing Lara to be separated from us.

If God loved those little Westies enough to allow us to get them out of that horrible puppy mill, then He still loves Lara enough to protect her now.

All five Westies were on the bed with me for several hours this evening. Charlotte has returned to her "job" of sleeping with either Mama or Unc, and the four Westies that stay with Gordon and me in the studio have stayed glued to the bed as Gordon watches the NFL Draft and basketball playoffs.

It is very possible that Lara is out having a Westie good time sniffing after rabbit and other wildlife. There is plenty of water in a number of ponds on the farm, and Lara has more than sufficient natural instinct to catch something to eat.

Lara may have spent the majority of her life in a small cage on a concrete slab, but in the past seven months, she and Mackie have been on a Mission to patrol the back yard and keep it safe from invading frogs and birds and rabbits and such. The terrier instinct is strong in Lara and Mackie.

She was wearing a wide pink collar with black polka dots when she disappeared. If someone has picked her up, they will surely know she is accustomed to pampering...just by the collar...don't you think?

Lara had pulled off her rabies tag and identification tag recently, and I had not gotten the stronger S-shaped rings to re-attach the tags.  You can imagine how I am blaming myself for that procrastination.

Please join me in praying for God to protect Lara and return her to us. If not, I am praying that God places her with a home where she will be loved more, even, than she was loved here.

This hurts so much I can hardly breathe.

Comments

[PawTrax]

Our thoughts are with you.

[Sherri starr]

Penny, Any word yet on Lra? My heart goes out to you and to her...I pray that God takes good care of her...please keep us posted of any progress

[Vickie]

Dear sweet Lara. Lucy, Dougal and Idgy will light a virtual candle on the WestieMed website www.westiemed.com. It will be the beacon light in the window to guide her way home.

[Barb]

Penny ~ I am praying for the safe return of Laura. Please keep us updated. My thoughts are with you.

[elvia edwards]

Oh Penny.....I am so sorry. I will pray for you and your family. I remember the time we lost a very special "fur baby", how much we worried and how much it hurt. It was at least 40 years ago, but I still felt the pain when reading your story of Lara! It's not knowing that is so hard. I pray your story has a happy ending.

[Andee in Wisc]

My thoughts and prayers are with you and little Laura...you have been through so much with these fur babies and I hope she is safe..if she has gone on she must have wanted to make sure the one who went before her wasn't lonely. Hugs.

[rlbates]

Penny, I'm so sad for you. Hope Laura comes home soon.

[Vicki]

So very sorry to hear. Bogie and I are sending positive energy your way and visualizing a safe return of your little white treasure.

[Susan]

I am praying for you and Laura. Hopefully she is just having a wonderful adventure and when she gets bored she will come running home.

We had our first thunderstorm last night since I ordered the Anxiety drops you recommended. They are wonderful!!!

[Joyce]

Oh dear Penny, I am so very sorry! I join you in your prayers for your sweet little one... may God Bless & watch over her...