Dennis, a neighbor we had not ever known about, saw the little dachshund we call, Sweetgrass, on June 22nd, the 5th morning of her gone missing. Thanks to our flyer his mom showed him, he was keeping an eye out for the badly missed stray .

The internet says a dog cannot live longer than 3 days without water; 5 days without food.

“She was taught how to survive by her ancient wolf ancestry,” a neighbor commented on Nextdoor.

I was too stressed with fearing the worst, to trust the best…the long, calm moments I had of knowing deep inside myself that she is a true survivor, she will be back with us.

Locked in fear, I was almost certain she was dead. Didn’t see how she could possibly survive out there with coyotes and owls and occasional mountain lions around.

50-degree nights. If the predators didn’t get her, how could she still even make it through one night when she sleeps like a typical dachshund under comforters on 90-degree afternoons?

I tried to convince myself that she suffered no pain; that minutes after the excruciating noise from nextdoor’s tree-mashing machines made her bolt, she died quickly from a stroke, a heart attack, coyote jaws breaking her neck in an instant. I even tried to believe the vision someone with kind intentions gave me of her “happily dancing among the stars” in the hereafter.

Whilst my imagination was running wild, stampeding me with fear, Sweetgrass’ instincts were keeping her alive. As were the love and good wishes and prayers  she could feel from her family and neighbors, and from those we never met.

Sweetgrass’ instincts and everyone’s love kept her alive.

It was Dennis who actually saved her life.

Not just by his focus on her fragile,12-pound self wobbling in his family’s field, but for immediately taking action to satiate her deadly thirst.    And then his mom, Mabel whose name comes from Latin meaning, “loveable”, soothed Sweetgrass’ empty belly with nutrient-rich food perfect for what her skinny little body was craving.

Sweetgrass was too on guard to let them touch her, so they kept her safe within a portable fence until we got there.

Thank you all so very much for helping Sweetgrass to return to me, to Frank.

One more detail, maybe the most important: Sweetgrass might not be with us today, if a neighbor’s grandkids whose ages were less than 2 digits in years, had not come to our door the morning after her disappearance, and asked me to go with them to knock on doors and hand out flyers.

Not just post flyers all over the area and handing them to those we see in passing as Frank and I had already been doing.

So off we went, the kids and I with flyers in hand, knocking on our neighbors’ doors.

There was one door I was too shy to approach, but finally did knock on, thanks to relentless pressure from the wisdom-kids escorting me.

You guessed it.

Mabel’s and Dennis’ door.