Dennis Alameda, a neighbor we had not ever met or seen before, saw the 15-yearold dachshund we call, Sweetgrass, on June 22nd, the 5th morning of her gone missing. Thanks to his mother Mabel showing him our flyer, 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.

My fear was so intense, I mistrusted my intuition. I lost hope.

It is only logical that she was dead, I told myself. Disconnected from Intuition, I couldn’t see how she could possibly survive with all the coyotes, owls and occasional mountain lions out there.

50-degree nights. If the predators didn’t get her, she still wouldn’t make it through one night, I rationalized. She sleeps like a typical dachshund under comforters on 90-degree afternoons. Only logical that her dehydrated, starving body shivered to death the first night.

But what if she didn’t shiver to death…quickly?

No worries. I still had the logic of Fear to keep me under its spell:

Maybe she suffered no pain at all. Maybe minutes after the excruciating noise from nextdoor’s tree-mashing machines made her bolt, she died fast from a stroke, a heart attack, coyote jaws snapping her neck in a second.

All very logical assumptions.

Whilst my mind was running wild with logic, Sweetgrass’ instincts were keeping her alive. As were the love and good wishes and prayers she could sense emanating over distances from her family and neighbors, and from those she never met.

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

But it was Mabel and Dennis Alameda who actually saved her life.

Not just by first zeroing in on the tiny object Dennis spotted wobbling in his family’s upper pasture, quickly realizing it was the dog on the flyer. He saved her life by immediately giving her water. And then thankfully, Mabel (meaning “loveable” in Latin), fed Sweetgrass’ what her emaciated body was craving.

Sweetgrass wouldn’t let them get near her, yet, that did not deter Dennis and Mabel from keeping her safe. They put a little fence around her until we got there.

I am deeply grateful to all who helped Sweetgrass return to me.

One more detail, maybe the most important: Sweetgrass might not be with us today, if one of our 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 posting 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 the relentless pressure from the super wise kids escorting me.

You guessed it.

The Alameda door.

A door that would not have been opened if not for the intuitive wisdom of  children, the ones standing beside me with their innate intuition in tact, confidently knowing that they would again be petting their beloved furry neighbor, Sweetgrass.

So, if, in times of crisis, rampant Logic irrationally invalidates your Hope and Intuition, please remember to stay Balanced by holding Logic in check.

So your true Knowing doesn’t go missing.

Like mine did.