Scarlett’s incredible adventure

(Photo by Linda Hughes.)

“That’s the second time that collar has saved your butt,” I said to our dog.
Our dog’s collar has her name stitched into it, along with my cellphone number.
The dog is also chipped.
It was bitter cold yesterday afternoon (Monday, December 13, 2010) when I returned from the Canandaigua YMCA and Weggers, perhaps 12 degrees with a wind-chill of minus three; in other words, quite windy.
It was so cold I thought the dog might need her coat just to do “the rounds.”
Her coat is a small afghan my paternal grandmother knitted; we attach it with safety-pins.
“The rounds” are walking around our property along the chainlink fence we had installed last summer.
The dog equates it with hunting.
That fence has a couple gates in it we keep closed, and semi-locked.
I had bought the dog a fuzzy toy.
She wasn’t much interested in playing with it — more interested in deeries, whatever, behind the fence.
She’s a hunter.
Later I saw our dog sitting outside in the cold patrolling our back yard.
Later still, no sign of the dog.
My wife went out to look for the dog, and a gate was open in our fence, like some hunter had left it open.
Then I got a frenzied phonecall from my wife. She was across the street, and had followed Scarlett’s tracks in the snow.
Here we go; no idea where to look, it’s bitter cold, and getting dark.
I put on my boots, and put my new Smartphone in my pocket, since that’s the number on her collar.
I took a flashlight, because I knew I might need it.
Into the fray, double-gloves.
Yelling was fruitless; a voice doesn’t carry far.
“Scarlett knows that car-horn,” my wife said. “She knows it miles away.”
I drove our car, a Honda CR-V SUV, around the block — a country-block of maybe two-three miles — blowing the horn occasionally.
I pulled into Michael Prouty Park up the street, and then back into our garage.
I started up the road on foot towards Prouty Park; I could hear a dog barking in the distance, as if protesting Scarlett.
Into Prouty Park I went, and then across an adjacent cut cornfield I always avoid with the dog.
I was headed toward that barking dog, and getting cold.
About half way across that cornfield, I heard a faint ding-a-ling in the wind. I figured it might be my Smartphone in my pocket.
I had to remove gloves to get it, and the cold wind was howling.
I attempted to answer, but it kept ringing.
There appear to be tricks to using a Smartphone I don’t understand yet.
Finally it stopped ringing; it had gone to voicemail.
I poked around in the gathering gloom, still bare-handed in the cold, trying to find the missed call.
I found that, and called.
It was the girl with our dog.
She had picked our dog up across from the motorcycle-store north of our house. (Our dog jumped right into her car.)
I said it would take me at least 15 minutes to walk back to our house.
The girl wasn’t from around here; she said she’d wait at the motorcycle-store.
I was gonna suggest taking Scarlett back to our house, but by then it was dark.
I started hiking back, and was gonna call my wife to suggest she go get the dog.
But the Smartphone threw anomalies at me, and refused to make the call.
I was still bare-handed, and getting frost-bitten.
I gave up and hiked back toward our house, circling back to pick up gloves dropped in the snow.
Finally, back in our house: “Now to go pick up our dog.”
At least five more minutes were needed to get the car back out, then down the street to the motorcycle-store.
There was the girl waiting in the dark, a Toyota Corolla, headlights on.
Scarlett was in the back seat along with a greyhound or afghan or something.
It was so cold, I don’t think our dog could have survived outside.
So now I have a cowed dog on hand, loaded with burrs and seeds.
Afraid -a) she was in deep trouble, which she’s not, and/or -b) we had abandoned her.
Also, she was utterly bushed.

• “Scarlett” is our current dog; a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s five, and is our sixth Irish-Setter. (A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill. By getting a rescue-dog, we avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. —Scarlett isn't too bad.)
• “Linda Hughes” is my wife of 43 years.
• The first time was when the dog ran away in nearby Boughton Park (“BOW-tin;” as in “wow”), and was picked up by a guy with a pickup-truck.
• RE: “Chipped......” —Our dog has a tiny microchip embedded in her skin. It’s for identification.
• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA exercise-gym. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 15 miles away. —We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.)
• “Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua.
• “Michael Prouty Park” is a town park near where we live. The land for it was donated by the Prouty family in honor of their deceased son “Michael” who used to play in that area. —It is mostly athletic fields, but has an open picnic pavilion. It’s maintained by the town. I walk our dog to and around it.