So we’re rushing to get out of the house to visit our friends Jennifer, Greg, and Cindy, and as usual we’re running behind. Greg plays guitar, as do I, and he asked me to bring my guitar so we could noodle around a bit. Sounds great, and just before we’re ready to head out I decide to put the diaper bag and guitar in the back of my Suzuki XL-7. Evan decides to come outside to watch me and leaves the door open… and Lily promptly bolts outside.
Let me explain something about Lily: she’s a whippet, and whippet’s are sighthounds, and they’re like the second fastest dog in the world. When I say Lily bolts out of the door, I literally mean she bolts out the door. At about thirty-ish miles per hour. There ain’t no way I’m catchin’ her without a large net or a tranquilizer gun.
This isn’t the first time Lily has escaped, but usually she runs around the yard a time or two and then lets us catch her. Not this time. This time she races around the neighborhood as I’m screaming her name at the top of my lungs like a nut-case and other neighbors begin to help by trying to corner her. Of course, she thinks it’s a game, so it eggs her on to start running faster and farther away. Then she runs out into the road, full-bore.
The first thing I think is that she’s gonna get clipped by a car and I’m going to have to walk back home with a dead dog in my arms and Evan’s gonna see it all. I get a little nauseous thinking about it as I’m chasing her, but maybe it’s not the thought of her being hit as much as I haven’t run like that since high school and my body is saying “Um, no!”. My hearts pounding, my hands are shaking, and thankfully no car is coming down the road as she slides into the left hand lane like a race car.
Finally either exhaustion or my incessant screaming of her name registers and she stops in the middle of the road. Of course by this time cars have reached her and are stopiing in the road… about six of them. Finally she comes to me and I pick her up in my arms so that she can’t run anymore and I wheeze my way back home.
By this point the entire neighborhood has either come outside or peeked their heads out of the window to see who the idiot screaming “Lily” was, and what’s happening. And of course the comments start coming as I’m heading home: “She ran fast!”, “You should put her on a leash.”, and “Is that a greyhound?”, and all those comments are doing is making me cranky.
By time I get back to our yard I find Evan standing in the middle of the lawn asking me if I’m OK. On one had I want to blame him for letting her out in the first place, but he’s not even four yet and won’t get it, and it was an honest accident. All I could do was to explain to him, yet again, how Lily will run away and if she gets into the road again she could get hurt.
She’s OK now, as are we all, and we made it to Greg and Cindy’s house to visit with them and Jennifer only being about 15 minutes late. And for us, that’s pretty normal.