Part I
Yes, it was a great story and movie in 1963. But the following story, the actual event, could be a Hallmark movie or perhaps a comedy. Talk about a man’s best friend? In this case, a dog’s best friend is the theme that shines throughout this story, one that started out for me as a basic interview. But the words of the contributors ended up mesmerizing me as they recounted their dedicated, heartfelt, humorous experiences in The Great Escape, the story of a dog that decided to pull off a Ferris Bueller – for 10 days.
To figure out who’s on first, I’ll post the cast of characters upfront: Dobbie – the adventurous dog; Heather and Amanda Newman – original owners of Dobbie; Donna Smalley – resident and a dog sitter; Chris Spillane – the very brief owner of Dobbie and resident; residents and other community searchers – as themselves; and Jerry Mathers as … just kidding.
When Heather and Amanda Newman, who live in Inverness, gained custody of three small children to hang out with their two dogs and a kitten, they thought that this would turn out to be a perfect fun storm. Nope. The kids scared the pets out of their fur, and the kids weren’t about to uproot. One dog and the kitten received their eviction notice and were rehomed to more compatible environs.
The dog that remained, a feisty little chihuahua named Dobbie, was all smiles, thinking that he now had the run of the house to himself. Not so fast, Dobbie. With their responsible focus being on the children, Heather and Amanda decided to find a new home for Dobbie as well and contacted Donna Smalley in On Top of the World to assist. Since Donna is a pet sitter for small dogs, she was the ideal choice to relocate Dobbie to a new home.
One problem, though. Dobbie simply doesn’t warm up to strangers quickly, if at all.
The Day Before – Welcome and Introductions
The cell phone of resident Chris Spillane rang. It was Donna Smalley, calling to announce a new arrival for Chris if she was interested. Of course, Chris jumped at the opportunity to have her own little dog and welcomed the visit from Heather, Amanda, and Dobbie.
As they spent time getting to know each other and discussing Dobbie’s history, Heather recognized the skittish Barney Fife look on the dog’s face. He wasn’t inclined toward acclimating at all. Oh well, give him a day or two, and he will be just fine; settling into his new home under the protection of his loving keeper is what they all thought. Heather, Amanda and Donna departed, relieved that Dobbie would begin a new chapter in his book of life. The problem was – he didn’t read the same book as everyone else. Dobbie writes his own books.
Official Day 1 – All Hell Breaks Loose
Heather called Chris to ask how Dobbie was acclimating and said that she was planning on going back to On Top of the World after work to help Dobbie transition to his new home. In the meantime, Donna visited Chris to assist with taking the dog outside on his leash. If refusing to come out of his crate is an indication of acclimation, well, he clearly indicated that he wasn’t acclimating.
The dog wouldn’t budge from the crate but finally did when he realized that he was going outside. But he must have known something else because as soon as he was outside, he bolted from his breakaway collar, a product feature not known by Chris and Donna, and then – now you see him, now you don’t.
Away he went, quicker than Willie Sutton from a bank robbery. Heather got the SOS call, grabbed her kids out of daycare, and joined the three-person search party that started in Chris’s neighborhood. After a couple of hours of little activity, Heather drove her kids back home, then returned to continue the search until 3:30 a.m. Yep, a.m.
Day 2 – Thanksgiving Day
Hoping that this day would also turn out to be a day of thanks for finding Dobbie and wanting to stay on top of potential sightings, Heather was continuously posting missing dog alerts on multiple social media websites. No responses. After Thanksgiving dinner, she returned and drove around the neighborhood until 9 p.m. looking for the dog.
She updated the website postings, and as word about the disappearing act got out, dog sightings started to trickle in. Small dog. Black and white chihuahua. Donna, in the meantime, was setting up command central in her house, where up-to-date information was being sent and dispersed back out to the ever-growing search party, with Chris spreading the word in her neighborhood. Thanksgiving Day came and went, and so did Dobbie. The problem was that nobody knew exactly where, to or from.
Day 3 – False Alarm
Back home in Inverness, Heather received a message reporting a Dobbie sighting. She immediately split for On Top of the World but realized that the message was from the previous day. If you ask me, I think that Dobbie sent it to razz everyone.
Heather spent more hours combing the area, hoping to catch a glimpse of that little, er, uh … doggie. All along the search area, Heather knew that Dobbie wouldn’t enter any wooded perimeters because, for some doggone reason, he preferred concrete under his paws rather than dirt. Why? Because he’s Dobbie. At least the search areas were somewhat contained. Heather persevered until 10 p.m. without gaining any clues as to the dog’s whereabouts. Disappointed and tired, she went back home, realizing that she had to wake up for a two-job weekend.
The sun rose on that chilly Saturday morning, the fourth day of the Great Escape, and … to be continued in the next issue of the World News.
Author: Dave DeAngelis, World News Writer
