Oh My God, I lost Buddy!!

One day last week I lost my dog! It was a wake up call for me for sure. The shock of losing my dog was too much for me.  Here"s what happened:

One day I left to go to the beach with Bud and forgot my whistle and to change into my beach  shoes. As Bud is trained to come when I blow the whistle.  This one day I didn't go down the stairs with him to watch him play like I always do. I stayed up on the landing to watch him. I was watching him play with a family and realized they weren't locals. He was playing with a father and the little boy throwing a stick around. Bud was having a fabulous time. As I was watching for about 15-20 minutes I took my eye off him for just a second an he disappeared.  I started running down the stairs without my new shoes on anyway screaming, "Buddy Buddy, Buddy!!" I couldn't see my phone due to the sun shining so brightly to call someone to help me and I was praying, "God please help me, I can't lose him, I can't lose him, I can't lose my Buddy" as I sobbed and prayed.  I got back to my scooter, got on it and started looking for him. Then I saw a car with a rack for traveling and I knew that had to be the house he went into. All the locals here know Buddy the out- of- town-peolpe don't I have of folks taking a dog home with them.
I pulled up to the house and a lady answered the door. I was screaming like a crazy lady.
As she opened the door she began holding her palms over her son's ears then sent him upstairs. I could see Bud behind her and he saw me and ran towards me wagging his tail and licking my face all over.

 After I got home and calmed down I realized I was mad at myself for not putting his collar on him with his name, my address and phone number. He's micro-chipped of course but they thought he was a stray.  He went with them because they were playing with him and didn't know who he belonged to. The next day I brought the family a "Thank You" card and humbly thanked them and went to get his name tag. Since then I never allow him on the beach without his collar and my whistle around my neck. I was so worried about wrecking a brand new pair of tennis shoes that I didn't go downstairs with him to the beach, Bud is more important than new shoes!!

I thank God for Bud everyday. I am so blessed he didn't get lost that day. They could have taken him anywhere. So I thank God I still have my boy. He licks my face everyday.